4 ms·
At least for me the problem is that leap seconds are unpredictable. How many seconds are there until January 1st 2020? We don't know, nobody knows. You can only
by phicoh 11y ago
At least for me the problem is that leap seconds are unpredictable. How many seconds are there until January 1st 2020? We don't know, nobody knows. You can only know for sure in 2019. That's bad, that's really bad. Performing internal calculations in TAI doesn't help if conversion between UTC and TAI is undefined for dates more than a year in the future.
Another way to fix the issue would be to define predictable leap seconds, just like leap years are predictable.
But I'd like to see them go. Nobody looks up to the sky and says "the sun is getting later and later". Half of the year most countries are far from solar time anyhow.
Do I care where the sun is relative to some arbitrary line in England? No.
- ars 11y agoI do like knowing when sunset is though. A second or two won't matter, but after some decades all the formulas for calculating sunset time will be wrong.
- phicoh 11y agoDuring one lifetime, you will see (at the current rate) about 60 leap seconds. Do you really notice if the sunset time is off by one minute? Note that moving 30 km (or 20 miles) east or west also changes the sunset by one minute.
- eru 11y ago> Note that moving 30 km (or 20 miles) east or west also changes the sunset by one minute. Depending on how close to the poles / equator you are, and probably also time of the year.
- manicdee 11y agoTo a photographer, a few seconds of error in sunset time is the difference between an awesome sunset with oranges, reds and purples, versus an uninspiring mass of grey clouds. Of course a photographer would start well before sunset and continue well after, but if you want to program a machine to photograph su sets you will end up having to use techniques other than checking the time.
- hugh4 11y agoAnd I'm sure we can keep that formula updated.
- vacri 11y agoThis being said, most computer clocks aren't so precisely accurate in the first place (especially over the course of years), and there is software (like ntp) to help keep them retuning to 'correct' time.