Re: [LEAPSECS] the tail wags the dog

From: Rob Seaman <seaman_at_NOAO.EDU>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 08:56:16 -0700

On Jan 24, 2006, at 7:21 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:

> I think the crucial insight here is that geophysics makes
> (comparatively) lousy clocks

The crucial insight is that the Earth is not a clock at all, but
rather the thing being timed.

> and we should stop using rotating bodies of geophysics for
> timekeeping.

We already have. The question is whether everybody on the planet
needs to adjust their clocks to match requirements imposed by the
high precision timekeeping needs of projects that already have
options other than UTC.

The follow-up question is whether attempting to ignore an inevitable
outcome is better than simply dealing with it through the intervening
centuries. All proposals (other than rubber seconds or rubber days)
face the same quadratically accelerating divergence between clock and
Earth.

Rob
Received on Tue Jan 24 2006 - 07:56:55 PST