US DoD Poll On Leap Seconds

@10u8 writes "For time scales to leap, or not to leap, has been the question here before. The ITU-R will be considering leap seconds again in a few weeks. This week the USNO posted a survey about leap seconds by the US DoD. The issue has civil implications as well as technical ones, and there is a demonstrated way to respect the history, remove leaps from navigation and POSIX time, yet keep the sun overhead at noon."

Comments

Re:Kill DST instead!!!!

[narcberry]

DST increases the productivity of the workforce. Just compare Arizona with the rest of the nation.

So long as we don't have leap nanoseconds

[WillAffleckUW]

I fail to see why there's any urgency to decide this, as we don't have leap nanoseconds or even leap milliseconds.

I set my non-existent watch by the solar-powered parking meters along the street, actually.

And why are we still keeping to a 60 second or 60 minute clock anyway?

Re:So long as we don't have leap nanoseconds

[WillAffleckUW]

I didn't mean to alter the actual measurement of time per se - e.g. as the world slows or speeds we adjust the length of a second.

What I meant was that, in actual fact, there should be leap nanoseconds and atomic clocks handle those adjustments, but we don't record them per se.

As to changing time, the Sumerians didn't even agree as to the precise definition, and many cultures have accurately kept time using wheels and water clocks using other measurements - China, Aztecs, Toltecs, etc.

We really only keep clock seconds - changing the names of the units above it shouldn't matter.

Besides, humans have a natural 25 hour clock, so it seems the earth may have rotated much faster originally, so our current "hours" are probably not correct.