Re: [LEAPSECS] more media coverage

From: John Cowan <jcowan_at_reutershealth.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 13:56:54 -0400

Rob Seaman scripsit:

> (Also, if these technical projects haven't demonstrated the capacity
> to deal with leap seconds, why should we believe they will demonstrate
> any greater capacity to deal with DUT > 0.9s?)

Because they may well not give a hoot about DUT, or the rotation of that
very poor clock, the Earth.

> In the case of abandoning leap seconds, however, it is every
> community that uses time-of-day (meaning everybody, more-or-less)

Almost 1 out of 6 citizens of Earth lives in China, the whole of which has
an LCT of UTC+8h despite apparent solar times varying from UT+5h to UT+9h.
The willingness of almost the whole of North American and Europe to move
a full hour away from its standard time every summer is also indicative,
as are the facts on the ground in Easter Island, whose civil time is
always a good two hours ahead of apparent solar time -- its longitude
is that of San Diego, but its LCT is roughly the LMT of Chicago.

I continue to not believe that keeping LCT at a good approximation to LMT
is all that important to most people who are not astronomers, navigators,
or other specialists.

--
As you read this, I don't want you to feel      John Cowan
sorry for me, because, I believe everyone       jcowan_at_reutershealth.com
will die someday.    -- From a Nigerian-type    http://www.reutershealth.com
                        scam spam I got         http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Received on Wed Jul 23 2003 - 10:58:50 PDT

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