Re: The real problem with leap seconds

From: Michael Sokolov <msokolov_at_IVAN.HARHAN.ORG>
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 06 01:35:34 GMT

Steve Allen <sla_at_UCOLICK.ORG> wrote:

> If I read it right you have reinvented Markus Kuhn's UTS [...]

Close to it, but...

Ed Davies <ls_at_edavies.nildram.co.uk> followed up:

> Also, Markus wasn't proposing UTS as a civil timescale but just
> for use within computer systems, etc.

Therein lies the key difference. I have strived to make my argument as
independent of computers as I could. To me the need for a real number
time scale is necessitated more by philosophy than computer science,
which is why I have resorted so much to the mathematical abstraction of
a real number in my paper.

My central argument still stands that current UTC is unsuitable for the
*philosophical* application of defining the abstract ideal scale of
civil time since it is not a scale in the mathematical definition of
this term (a real number). I believe that the scale of civil time needs
to be a scale. Furthermore, I believe that it should be related to the
cycle of day and night rather than completely decoupled from it, so I
won't support freezing the leap seconds for the next few centuries as a
"solution". That leaves me with my current position of arguing for a
coordinated time scale with elongated and shortened seconds.

MS
Received on Sat Jan 07 2006 - 17:35:48 PST