I have been thinking about my problem, the major part of the problem is finding the right question. If leap seconds are applied to keep the meanderings of the planet in phase with our mean time clocks, then what about our leap year days which are applied to keep the seasons in phase with our calendars? Applying a whole day every so many years may keep the civil authorities happy, but when we all celebrate a new year we are not counting down the completion of a planetary cycle but the civil approximation to a new year. Now, having thought about it a bit more, the year is the completing of an orbit of our elliptical orbit around the sun. The start and finish of an orbit is defined by the inclined axis of rotation of the Earth crossing the plane of its orbit which is what causes the seasons. The elliptical orbit is moving, hence the precession of the equinoxes. As we can not measure a year by looking at a particular star crossing our meridian, we measure the year by watching a fictitious star crossing our meridian. This star (which used to be at the first point of Aries on the vernal equinox) is slowly orbiting around our solar system as our tilted ecliptic precesses.
Which now gets me back to my question. If I want to make a clock that chimes once per solar year when we have completed a cycle it will count down a number of seconds then chime. So I want to know the number of seconds in a Mean Year, accurate enough so that in 200 years time it will still be right. It should be fun to see the time the new year really starts as we head around the orbit again. The time will not be midnight but will jump around in the day with different years. There are so many interference's in time keeping by accountants and politicians I was thinking of making a clock that showed real time as determined by sun and stars. Although that brings up the equation of time, and mean time is so convenient if you have an atomic clock. I might just try to make a clock that shows the mediaeval "Italian Hours", where every day has 24 hours with sunrise at 6 AM with sunset at 6PM. The old clocks had dials marked so that you read off the elastic Italian hours. cheers, Neville Michie > time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ > time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
