Re: [LEAPSECS] 24:00 versus 00:00

From: John Cowan <cowan_at_ccil.org>
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 07:51:07 -0500

Ed Davies scripsit:

> No, it amounts to saying that some days are 24 hours and 1 second
> long. When you're half a second from the end of such a day you
> are 24 hours, zero minutes and half a second from the start.

I grant that. Nonetheless, the third-from-last figure in a broken-out
timestamp reflects the hour number, and by your scheme there would be
25 possibilities for its value, just as by the standard scheme there
are 61 possibilities for the second number.

> If you had a 1'6" piece of string you wouldn't say it's a two
> foot piece of string but the second foot is only 152.4 mm long.
> (Well, I think you wouldn't, though I think some politicians
> might.)

No, I wouldn't. But in labeling every point on the string to a
precision of 1 inch, I would say that there are two possibilities
for the "number of feet", 0 or 1.

--
John Cowan  cowan_at_ccil.org  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.ap.org
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on
the shoulders of giants.
        --Isaac Newton
Received on Fri Feb 17 2006 - 04:51:21 PST

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