Re: [LEAPSECS] Leapmilliseconds are not a solution

From: Ed Davies <ls_at_EDAVIES.NILDRAM.CO.UK>
Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2003 13:27:02 +0100

I wrote:
> My humble opinion is that in 1972 leap milliseconds should have
> been introduced (i.e., set the UTC day length to an integer number
> of milliseconds, ...

Markus Kuhn replied:
# As I explained here before, this is not feasible. It messes up any form
# of standard frequency transmission that is not a multiple of 1000 Hz,
# ...

Yes, we've discussed this before. As always in this list, the answer
would be: use TAI.

The real point is that any solution will be an engineering compromise.
All we can hope to do is to keep the costs to a minimum. When people
know about a problem up-front they can usually work round it fairly
cheaply. It's the problems which people don't know about until too
late which cause the greatest costs. Therefore, I think the emphasis
in any solution should be to put most of the work on those who
understand and care about these problems - those responsible for such
things as frequency standards.

I don't believe that the leap hour solution answers this point at all
well - because eventually it'll affect everybody.

But then, I don't think anybody on this list has really spoken up in
favour of leap hours - or have I missed something?

Happy aphelion everybody,

Ed.
Received on Fri Jul 04 2003 - 05:38:18 PDT