Rudolf,
If the day length starts at 86400 seconds and grows by 0.000017 second each
year, it would indeed reach 86401 seconds in about 60000 years. But if this
rate is uniform, the tiny fractional increases would accumulate to 1 second in
just 343 years, so I think that's when the first leap second would be needed.
Roger
From: sundial [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Rudolf
Hooijenga
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2015 5:18 PM
To: 'Brooke Clarke'; [email protected]
Subject: RE: No decision on future of leap seconds
. . . In fact, the Earth does slow down – and not just lately –, but this
effect amounts to about 17 microseconds each year on average, and would only
necessitate an extra leap second every sixty thousand years or so. The
day-to-day fluctuations are much larger than this.
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