3 ms·

>So let's just wait until there's 15 minutes of error - a couple of millenia from now. Then move the UTC prime meridian about 3.75 degrees / 400km, fixing the e

>So let's just wait until there's 15 minutes of error - a couple of millenia from now. Then move the UTC prime meridian about 3.75 degrees / 400km, fixing the error while keeping UTC monotonically increasing 1 second per second. Shifting the prime meridian 400km seems like it'd have some unintended consequences akin to the Y2K problem. Its physical location is used as a reference point in some coordinate systems, ECEF for example.

Analemma_ 2y ago
You don't need to move the prime meridian, you just need countries to update their individual time zone offsets from UTC, which is already a well-supported path that happens all the time. If we abolish leap seconds, countries would just wait until solar noon drifted ~30 minutes (which would take centuries), then just do a TZ offset update. Nothing could be simpler.
- mywittyname 2y ago
  Are you suggesting a solution akin to UTC-4:00 is now UTC-4:00:01? That sounds like a headache of epic proportions when contrasted with the alternative of a leap seconds.
  - School-Cotton 2y ago
    No, they're suggesting a solution akin to Eastern Kazakhstan was on UTC+6:00:00 one day, and on UTC+5:00:00 the next day. This actually happened last March[0] and I'm not aware of anyone outside Kazakhstan being inconvenienced by it at all. tzdb updates happen several times a year and everything keeps working fine. 0: https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tzdb-2024a/NEWS https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tzdb-2024a/NEWS
  - Analemma_ 2y ago
    No, I'm saying that e.g. Central Europe Time keeps being defined as "UTC+1" for the next few centuries until solar noon has drifted about 30 minutes away from civil noon, then CET's definition changes to be UTC+0 or UTC+0:30. This is a time zone update of the sort which happens constantly (e.g. in 2017, Chile changed its TZ offset, Haiti started using DST and Mongolia stopped using DST. A TZ offset change to account for clock drift would be exactly the same)

Analemma_ 2y ago

You don't need to move the prime meridian, you just need countries to update their individual time zone offsets from UTC, which is already a well-supported path that happens all the time. If we abolish leap seconds, countries would just wait until solar noon drifted ~30 minutes (which would take centuries), then just do a TZ offset update. Nothing could be simpler.

mywittyname 2y ago
Are you suggesting a solution akin to UTC-4:00 is now UTC-4:00:01? That sounds like a headache of epic proportions when contrasted with the alternative of a leap seconds.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  No, they're suggesting a solution akin to Eastern Kazakhstan was on UTC+6:00:00 one day, and on UTC+5:00:00 the next day. This actually happened last March[0] and I'm not aware of anyone outside Kazakhstan being inconvenienced by it at all. tzdb updates happen several times a year and everything keeps working fine. 0: https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tzdb-2024a/NEWS https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tzdb-2024a/NEWS
- Analemma_ 2y ago
  No, I'm saying that e.g. Central Europe Time keeps being defined as "UTC+1" for the next few centuries until solar noon has drifted about 30 minutes away from civil noon, then CET's definition changes to be UTC+0 or UTC+0:30. This is a time zone update of the sort which happens constantly (e.g. in 2017, Chile changed its TZ offset, Haiti started using DST and Mongolia stopped using DST. A TZ offset change to account for clock drift would be exactly the same)