On Jan 1, 2007, at 17:03, John Cowan wrote:
> Michael Sokolov scripsit:
>
>> The people who complain about leap seconds screwing up their interval
>> time computations are usually told to use TAI. They retort that they
>> need interval time *between civil timestamps*. To me that seems like
>> what they are really measuring as "interval time" is not physical
>> interval time, but how much time has elapsed *in civil society*.
>
> I think this point is quite sound, but I don't quite see what
> its implications are (or why it makes rubber seconds better than
> other kinds of adjustments).
One implication is that a leap second insertion is a second of real
time, but zero seconds of "intuitive civil time".
Rubber seconds are appropriate because we have rubber days. People
who need absolute time have their own timescale based on some
absolute unit (the SI "second"), but to everyone else, the second is
a fraction of the day.
--
Ashley Yakeley
Received on Mon Jan 01 2007 - 17:32:34 PST