We should offer a prize when a new talking point is raised that hasn't appeared here before. I don't remember this one :-)
Very interesting. What about the other hands? The watch on my wrist is of the stepping, not sweeping, kind. But the other hands appear to move at a continuous pace. Implementing a leap second by this analysis would require the minute and hour hands to execute a less dramatic version of the flick maneuver (or a lien on the requirement and just accept the tiny angular display error). For the non-astronomers here, note that the middle of the night can be the worst possible time to implement the little dance Steve describes. Rob -- On Jan 24, 2012, at 4:01 PM, Mark Calabretta wrote: > > On Tue 2012/01/24 07:18:36 -0800, Steve Allen wrote > in a message to: Leap Second Discussion List <[email protected]> > >> The ones with WWVB >> receivers in them do a little dance every night when nobody is >> watching and the signal is strong, and that dance looks a lot >> like the handling of a leap second. > > There are two basic types of analogue clock display. One where the > second hand steps around the dial from second to second (thus > disawowing sub-second timekeeping), and the other where it moves > smoothly and continuously. It is interesting to contemplate how a > leap second would appear on each were it to be implemented. > > In the former, on reaching 60, the second hand would stay there for 2 > seconds thus making it impossible to track time during a leap second. > > In the latter, the second hand would move continuously past 60 to 01 > second and immediately flick back to 60, thus making it possible to > reckon time during a leap second. > > Regards, Mark _______________________________________________ LEAPSECS mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
