The Gregorian calendar doesn't mess up how computers keep track of time, like leap seconds do. Neither do time zones. Leap seconds are different -- a special kind of awful.
On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 9:25 AM, John Sauter < [email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, 2017-01-04 at 13:57 +0100, Preben Nørager wrote: > > We don't know how future generations will see the "problem", if leap > > seconds are abolished. As generations today see it, the "problem" is > > that without leap seconds the sun is getting ahead or behind the > > official international timescale, so that the noon transit not > > normally will occur around 12 midday. I think leap seaconds are to be > > abolished, as soon as possible, and that we should leave to future > > generations the only logical way to deal with that "problem". The > > only logical way is to continue praksis, and let each sovereign > > nation individually decide, how many minutes and/or hours its > > official time is ahead or behind the international timescale. > > Currently the time in Denmark is 1 hour ahead of international time > > (UTC), but I don't see any problem if future generations in Denmark > > should decide, that Denmark instead of 1 hour, is 1 hour and 30 > > minutes, or 2 hours ahead. Great Britain, and other nations, should > > get used to a constant difference between international time, and > > national time, but I dont see why they should not live comfortably > > with that, like everybody else. > > > > Preben > > Preben, > > You and I disagree on this issue. For me this is fundamentally a moral > concern. I believe that each generation should handle its problems as > best it can, leaving to the next generation only unforeseen problems. > > The tension between the need of civil society and science for a time > scale that simultaneously matches the Earth and atomic time is met by > the Gregorian Calendar and UTC. > > The reform that brought the calendar back into synchronization with the > seasons was proposed several times but got no traction until 1582. > That generation bit the bullet and suffered the dislocation of dropping > 10 days from the calendar rather than continue to defer the problem. > It took centuries for everyone to get on-board, but today almost > everyone uses the Gregorian calendar. > > UTC, as it is defined today with leap seconds, is a similar challenge. > We can fix the buggy software or we can cause a problem for the next > generation. I feel that it would be immoral to remove an adequate > solution just because we are too lazy to write code correctly. > John Sauter ([email protected]) > > -- > PGP fingerprint E24A D25B E5FE 4914 A603 49EC 7030 3EA1 9A0B 511E > -- Michael Rothwell [email protected] (828) 649-ROTH
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