Vote To Eliminate Leap Seconds

Mortimer.CA writes "As discussed on Slashdot previously, there is a proposal to remove leap seconds from UTC (nee 'Greenwich' time). It will be put to a vote to ITU member states during 2008, and if 70% agree, the leap second will be eliminated by 2013. There is some debate as to whether this change is a good or bad idea. The proposal calls for a 'leap-hour' in about 600 years, which nobody seems to believe is a good idea. One philosophical point opponents make is that the 'official' time on Earth should match the time of the sun and heavens."

Comments

Re:Why not just make each second a little longer?

[mbone]

Of course, the real problem is that the rotation of the Earth is not constant (the leap seconds are mostly driven by fluid motions in the core).

Originally, back in the 1960's, instead of the leap seconds, they (the BIH at the time) adjusted the rate of the UTC seconds with respect to TAI. This was widely viewed as not a good thing once it was tried and was dropped, IIRC in 1972.

Re:They have to add a leap something, sometime

[evanbd]

Leap years are to deal with correcting the length of the year, which isn't an integral number of days. Leap seconds are to deal with the fact that the length of a day changes slowly and at a variable rate. It's not the same problem at all.

Your post - Bollocks

[janrinok]

We used to have 120 pence to the pound in the UK

There were 240 pence to the old (pre-decimalisation) pound, comprised of 20 shillings each worth 12 (old) pence. Do you remember guineas, crowns, half-crowns, shillings, tanners (6-penny piece), threepenny bit, pennies, half-pennies, farthings (a quarter penny)? I do. I suspect that I am quite a bit older than you and I cannot ever remember there being 120 pence to the pound. So either please provide a citation or confess that you are mistaken/talking bollocks. :-)

But the main thrust of your post was correct with regards to dividing sums of money easily. Or at least it was until the education system decided that mathematics and mental arithmetic were not the most important subjects in life. I'm not sure how some of today's young people could cope with such problems.