3 ms·

> Astronomers complaining about the clock time being wrong is exactly the same as farmers complaining about daylight savings. Well, and it's exactly the same (

> Astronomers complaining about the clock time being wrong is exactly the same as farmers complaining about daylight savings. Well, and it's exactly the same (only the sign is changed) like software engineers complaining about leap seconds. Do a better job and the systems will not suffer from leap seconds. Of course, astronomers and farmers will be more inclined to agree with this statement; software engineers, not so much. :) We all complain when we are inconvenienced. When other people are inconvenienced, bah, it's a trifle.

rcthompson 12y ago
The point is that the leap seconds don't actually help astronomers because they need sub-second accuracy anyway, so they're going to need a more exact time and they won't really care whether it says "12:47:45.435" or "12:47:44.435". So it's a lot of work for dubious benefit. Also, we "suffer" from leap seconds not because we did a bad job designing the system, but because the Earth's rotation is slowing due to tidal forces from the moon, so an earth day today is already a tiny fraction of a second longer than it was when we defined a day to be 24 hours. So we have a couple of choices: change the length of an hour (and minute, and second...) to match the Earth's changing rotational speed; let solar time and clock time gradually drift apart; or add leap seconds to keep them roughly in sync. The first option is clearly insane, since having our measure of time vary over time would be a huge inconvenience. Out of the 2nd and 3rd, options, we have chosen the 3rd. A lot of people are arguing that the 2nd is really a better option. In the (very very) long term, it almost certainly is. Once the Earth's day becomes 25 hours, we'd be adding a leap hour every day! This is my understanding of the situation, anyway. Anyone with more experience here, feel free to correct me.
voidz 12y ago
Here I would suggest that we use a thrusters to fix (yes, fix) Earth's rotational speed. Heck, let's slow it down when we're at it, I could use more hours in a day!
- eru 12y ago
  See https://what-if.xkcd.com/26/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/26/

rcthompson 12y ago

The point is that the leap seconds don't actually help astronomers because they need sub-second accuracy anyway, so they're going to need a more exact time and they won't really care whether it says "12:47:45.435" or "12:47:44.435". So it's a lot of work for dubious benefit. Also, we "suffer" from leap seconds not because we did a bad job designing the system, but because the Earth's rotation is slowing due to tidal forces from the moon, so an earth day today is already a tiny fraction of a second longer than it was when we defined a day to be 24 hours. So we have a couple of choices: change the length of an hour (and minute, and second...) to match the Earth's changing rotational speed; let solar time and clock time gradually drift apart; or add leap seconds to keep them roughly in sync. The first option is clearly insane, since having our measure of time vary over time would be a huge inconvenience. Out of the 2nd and 3rd, options, we have chosen the 3rd. A lot of people are arguing that the 2nd is really a better option. In the (very very) long term, it almost certainly is. Once the Earth's day becomes 25 hours, we'd be adding a leap hour every day! This is my understanding of the situation, anyway. Anyone with more experience here, feel free to correct me.

voidz 12y ago

Here I would suggest that we use a thrusters to fix (yes, fix) Earth's rotational speed. Heck, let's slow it down when we're at it, I could use more hours in a day!

eru 12y ago
See https://what-if.xkcd.com/26/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/26/