Re: Wikipedia article
Brian Garrett said: > Besides, the English term "leap second" is a misnomer--a leap year is > a year with an extra day in it (and the inserted day is *not* called a leap > day) so by analogy the insertion of a second should probably have been > termed a "leap minute". The initial derivation of the term is that the Dominical Letter (which shows the mapping between day of week and date) leaped over a value on that day: the sequence would go: 2005 B 2006 A 2007 G 2008 FE (F for January and February, E for the rest) 2009 D 2010 C 2011 B -- Clive D.W. Feather | Work: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | Tel:+44 20 8495 6138 Internet Expert | Home: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | Fax:+44 870 051 9937 Demon Internet | WWW: http://www.davros.org | Mobile: +44 7973 377646 THUS plc||
Re: Wikipedia article
Brian Garrett wrote: > Besides, the English term "leap second" is a misnomer--a leap year is >a year with an extra day in it (and the inserted day is *not* called a leap >day) Actually it *is* called a "leap day". It is the "leap year" terminology that is the odd one out. -zefram
Re: Wikipedia article
- Original Message - From: "Ed Davies" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 3:55 PM Subject: [LEAPSECS] Wikipedia article > Thanks to those who confirmed the ITU text on when leap seconds can > be applied. > > I've made two small edits to the Wikipedia article to correct > parts which were wrong or potentially misleading (plus a slightly > tongue-in-cheek remark in the discussion page) > > However, it's a horrible article and really needs reorganization > as some of the paragraphs have suffered serious mission creep. > > I don't even like the first sentence. "Intercalary" seems wrong > to me as a leap second is part of the day it is applied to, not > between days. I thought about changing it but decided I might > be being a bit blinkered in my definition of "intercalary". > Thoughts? > > Ed. > The French-language term for leap second is "second intercalaire", so calling a leap second "intercalary" has a linguistic precedent if nothing else. Besides, the English term "leap second" is a misnomer--a leap year is a year with an extra day in it (and the inserted day is *not* called a leap day) so by analogy the insertion of a second should probably have been termed a "leap minute". But that's all cesium over the dam, now. Brian
Re: Wikipedia article
Ed Davies wrote: >However, it's a horrible article and really needs reorganization >as some of the paragraphs have suffered serious mission creep. I edited quite a lot of time-related articles last year, and couldn't figure out what to do with it. I started off with the articles on astronomical time scales, and worked in conceptual sequence over towards [[Coordinated Universal Time]]. [[International Atomic Time]] is mostly my work, but UTC is on the other side of the obscure/mainstream divide, and from there on I found myself hindered by other well-meaning editors. It seemed silly to me to have [[leap second]] distinct from [[UTC]]: leap seconds are the defining feature of UTC, after all. So my first effort was to merge them. This was too controversial, and my formal proposal to do it was roundly defeated. In retrospect, I think the mainstream view of UTC is as the base timezone, though that is really the job of the generic UT. Leap seconds seem to be viewed as an unimportant detail. I put as much as I could into [[UTC]]. It duplicates some of what is in [[leap second]]. I don't have a clear concept of what belongs in [[leap second]] that doesn't belong in [[UTC]], so in the end I left it as a collection of miscellaneous bits, which was pretty much how I had found it. Paragraphs and sections suffering mission creep has also occurred a bit in [[UTC]]. I failed to disentangle it all. >I don't even like the first sentence. "Intercalary" seems wrong >to me as a leap second is part of the day it is applied to, not >between days. "Intercalary" is precisely the correct term. An intercalary day, as we have in the Gregorian calendar, is inserted between other days; an intercalary month, as in the Jewish lunisolar calendar, is inserted between other months; both are part of the year to which they are applied. An intercalary second is inserted between other seconds, and is part of the day to which it is applied. -zefram
Wikipedia article
Thanks to those who confirmed the ITU text on when leap seconds can be applied. I've made two small edits to the Wikipedia article to correct parts which were wrong or potentially misleading (plus a slightly tongue-in-cheek remark in the discussion page) However, it's a horrible article and really needs reorganization as some of the paragraphs have suffered serious mission creep. I don't even like the first sentence. "Intercalary" seems wrong to me as a leap second is part of the day it is applied to, not between days. I thought about changing it but decided I might be being a bit blinkered in my definition of "intercalary". Thoughts? Ed.
