[time-nuts] Re: UTC - A Cautionary Tale

Poul-Henning Kamp phk at phk.freebsd.dk
Sat Jul 16 08:32:18 EDT 2005


In message <6.2.3.4.0.20050716080834.03f845d8 at mjs.alientech.net>, Mike S writes
:
>_All_ uses of civil time expect it to be synchronous with astronomical
>time, to varying degrees of precision. An absence of leap (seconds)
>will eventually cause it to be dark at noon, unadjusted use of the
>current formula for leap days will eventually shift the seasons.
>That's unavoidable and unacceptable.

I'm sure that when humans two thousand years down the line look
back at us, probably the same way as we do on the ancient romans and
greeks, they will appreciate your concern.

I am equally sure, that if they find a record of your email and realize
that you expected them to do exactly as you told them to, they'd
be having at least one good laugh at your expense.

100 years ago, Einstein, Bohr and others figured something out.

50 years ago, we started doing atomic timekeeping.

A lot of things can happen in 1000 years, provided we make it there.

>Eliminating leap seconds only creates a long term problem to provide
>short term convenience. It is not a logically consistent solution.

It is 100% logically consistent:  "Ignore this planet".

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at 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.




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