Re: [LEAPSECS] building consensus

From: Rob Seaman <seaman_at_noao.edu>
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 20:38:35 -0700

On Jun 5, 2006, at 7:38 PM, John Cowan wrote:

> As I've said before, eventually the notion that the solar day contains
> 24h of 60m of 60s will have to be abandoned. It'll be awfully hard
> to maintain when an "hour" involves two human sleep-wake cycles,
> out in the limit when the Moon is fully tidally locked and 1 lunar
> month =
> 1 solar day = 47 current solar days, more or less.

Humanity will be doing pretty well if we're still here to have the
argument :-)

Just returned from a conference three hours to the east. The
existence of
jet lag suggests significant evolutionary pressure locking human sleep
cycles to the length of the day. Don't have to go to your extreme
example,
because at 2 ms/century it will take a mere 180 My for the day to
lengthen
to 25 hours :-) I, for one, am confident our descendants will evolve to
compensate, and thus that Babylonian time will persist throughout.

No smiley, actually, other than that entirely new 25-hour-compatible
phyla will likely inherit the smoldering briquette we're going to make
of the post-pangaeic Earth.

Rob
NOAO
Received on Mon Jun 05 2006 - 20:38:54 PDT