Re: [LEAPSECS] Leap-seconds, the epsilon perspective

From: Mark Calabretta <Mark.Calabretta_at_ATNF.CSIRO.AU>
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 12:19:12 +1100

On Tue 2003/01/28 23:10:07 CDT, John Cowan wrote
in a message to: LEAPSECS_at_ROM.USNO.NAVY.MIL

>I at least care that a *civil* day be 86400 SI seconds in length.

This begs the question of why you care.

>Mean solar days don't affect me to speak of.

We're looking for a solution which will satisfy the broadest spectrum
of users with the least inconvenience.

>What for? Why should we (the people of the Earth) care about mean
>solar days? For some purposes, apparent solar time is important, but
>most of the time it's civil time that counts. Why should that be tied
>to mean solar days?

Would you consider measuring civil time as a non-cyclic count of SI
seconds, akin to Julian Date?

>Hmm. How reasonable is it to expect this to change in future?

Personal clocks might well become more accurate, but the ABC would
still start its programs five minutes late so my VCR's millisecond
accuracy would be wasted. Buses would still run at semi-random times,
and I would still be woken by the Koels before my alarm clock went
off at precisely 07:30:00.000!

Mark Calabretta
ATNF
Received on Wed Jan 29 2003 - 17:19:44 PST