Hi Patric and all, 2008/12/10 Patrick Powers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >The Leap second is back - evidently the current administration's proposal > to eliminate them has not been adopted.< > > Excellent news indeed for diallists and lovers of solar time but isn't it > rather sad that the link that reported this good news gets its facts wrong > - like so many others you can see relating to the leap second? It makes > the mistake of attrbuting the need for the leap second to the slowing down > of the earth. It is related to it of course but the slowing of the earth > is actually only circa 1.5mS per century and since atomic time was defined > to equate with solar time at 1900, now - roughly 100+ years later, we have > a discrepancy of 1.5mS between the two time scales. To be even more pedantic the discrepancy between these two time scales is 1.5mS/day and due to to the slowing down of the earth this discrepancy is growing even more in the future. Yes, actually it already is about 2mS/day. Aimo > It is to adjust for > this that we need the leap second . Indeed it is interesting to note that > even if miraculously the earth's rotation did not slow down from now on we > would still need leap seconds every few years to keep our closks in > synchronism with solar time.. > > Ah well, pedantry is a good thing sometimes.... > > Patrick > > --------------------------------------------------- > https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial > >
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