[time-nuts] FW: Bulletin C number 30

Mike S mikes at flatsurface.com
Mon Jul 4 17:10:41 EDT 2005


At 04:42 PM 7/4/2005, Warner Losh wrote...
>You've clearly not dealt with many such system then if you are going
>to make such sweeping statements.

Your sweeping statement is wrong.

>The truth of the matter is that there's a very real cost to leap seconds.

There are many costs to keeping accurate time, this is just one of them. If it's not worth the cost, than the value isn't there, so don't bother. There's obviously no cost if the system doesn't need one second accurate time (i.e. an alarm clock). 

Much the same can be said of leap years (or more correctly, days).  The mechanics are similar Feb 28>Feb 29>Mar 1 is fundamentally no different than 23:59:59>23:59:60>00:00:00, it's just adding to the appropriate count on an exception basis. The only difficulty is communicating the need and keeping track, since they occur "randomly." There is a mechanism in place for the former, and the latter isn't particularly difficult.

If leap seconds were to be done away with, at what point do things get re-synchronized, if at all? When we're off a minute? hour? day?, and how is accommodating for that "randomness" any different? 

Sounds like asking for the Julian calendar problems all over again.





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