>It is interesting that the leap seconds correction is always a positive >number.
But less so now than 40 years ago according to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second So does that mean the earth is speeding up? Maybe the cause is all the DARK ENERGY out there speeding everything up :) A good and simple explanation of why they CHOOSE to make the second wrong is at:. http://www.nist.gov/pml/div688/leapseconds.cfm "There are two main reasons that cause leap seconds to occur. The first is that the duration of the atomic second was measured and defined by comparing cesium clocks to the Ephemeris Time (ET) scale, an obsolete time scale that defined the second as a fraction of the tropical year. The duration of the ephemeris second was slightly shorter than the mean solar second and this characteristic was passed along to the atomic second. If the atomic second had been defined with respect to the mean solar second, it is likely that leap seconds would have been required much less frequently. The second reason for leap seconds is that the speed of the Earth's rotation is not constant. It sometimes speeds up, and sometimes slows down, but when averaged over long intervals the trend indicates that it is gradually slowing. This gradual decrease in the rotational rate is causing the duration of the mean solar second to gradually increase with respect to the atomic second." _______________________________________________ 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.
