Re: Fred Basset 11-14


In the previous article, Peter Trei <treifamily@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> The American delegation to the ITU is proposing dropping the leap
> seconds - mainly, it seems, because a lot of software doesn't
> easily allow the addition of arbirary leap seconds.
>
> I'm not sure how I feel about this - delinking the clock from
> the heavens seems wrong, somehow. Astronomers and orbital
> engineers are up in arms.

This proposal has been around three or four years. (One version calls
for a "leap hour" to be inserted when needed to get the time standard
synced back up with the heavens. The first one will be far, far in
the future.) It needs to be said that it's not just "software" that
is deficient in this respect, it's very important software such as air
traffic control applications and GPS. (The new GPS standard, at
least, fixes the problem.) That said, I regard this as a pretty
horrible idea.

BTW, the standard allows for negative leap seconds in the event the
earth's rotation should speed up. (This is entirely possible.) No
negative leap seconds have ever been applied.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / baldwin@xxxxxxxxx|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
.

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