On Thu 2015-01-29T13:25:02 +0000, Peter Vince hath writ: > There have been some strong views expressed that a "day" has to mean a > solar day, i.e. midnight-to-midnight (or midday-to-midday).
A basic component of the dispute is "The time that people have agreed upon." Leap seconds persist now because they are written into the document which is recognized as the standing agreement, and that agreement incorporated the then existing agreement about a day while changing the agreement about a second. It's really weird for UTC to be the only time scale where the duration of one day is unrelated to the duration of one second, but that is the agreement. Many who dislike the implications are already ignoring strict conformance with the agreement, namely IEEE 1588, ITU-T Recommendation G.8265.1, GPS, Advanced Television Standards Committee, Galileo, the system clock inside Android devices with GPS, BeiDou, IRNSS. Their systems work without leaps yet the sky has not fallen because of their failure to conform. > What HAS affected me is the > disruption caused by, and please forgive the loose phraseology, the adding > of an extra second every now and then. The documents presented to the assembly of the ITU-R have not contained detailed descriptions of the success of systems that have avoided being affected by leap seconds. They have also not contained detailed descriptions of the failures of sytems that have been affected by leap seconds and an explanation for why those failed systems were unable to adopt the strategies of the successful systems. Many of the delegates to the ITU-R represent nations where the civil calendar is strictly determined by the observation of the moon. The documents presented to the assembly of the ITU-R have also not mentioned how the option of abandoning leap seconds affects the definition of the day. I haven't seen how the delegates can make an informed decision to forge a new agreement when they have inputs that do not contain analysis of of important technical, legal, and cultural aspects. -- Steve Allen <[email protected]> WGS-84 (GPS) UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat +36.99855 1156 High Street Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06015 Santa Cruz, CA 95064 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m _______________________________________________ LEAPSECS mailing list [email protected] https://pairlist6.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
