On 15 July 2011 22:59, Poul-Henning Kamp <p...@phk.freebsd.dk> wrote: > In message > <cactjvnxhfq79n3fvprs4xyen4ouc6w7q9ih1u2kisfg9d_f...@mail.gmail.com> > , Steve Rooke writes: >>Well, instead of leap seconds which seem to be the biggest bug bear >>for everyone, keep the second as 1/86,400 of the earths current >>rotation and adjust the factor used in the calculation of atomic time >>on a regular basis. > > We tried that in the 1960-ies, and it didn't work for anybody at all.
Well, I really said that tongue in cheek just to stir up a hornets nest as I know it was not practical. The scientific community (and some industrial processes) do need a precisely defined, and reproducible, UNIT of time, that's a given. This does not mean that this atomic standard is the magic bullet for everything related to time though. In fact I'd go as far as to say that "atomic time" has nothing to do with real time and should never have been coupled with it in the first place. For most of the world, the correct measure of a second is 1/86,400 or the current rotation of this planet as that is the only thing that makes sense and keeps correlation over all of time. The idea of having to add a leap second every month in 2,500 years time, assuming we still exist then, seems quite ludicrous, I agree with you entirely, but the idea of the day gradually drifting out of sync with our artificial time is also not workable. I saw a comment to your article which suggested that we ditch leap seconds and leave the problem to future generations, seems an anathema to me. Steve > -- > Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 > p...@freebsd.org | TCP/IP since RFC 956 > FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe > Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. > -- Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV & G8KVD The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. - Einstein _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.