[time-nuts] Re: leap seconds finally being retired?

[Tom Van Baak]

Chris,

As you noticed, earth rotation and leap seconds have been in the news a 
bit the past few years, from newspaper articles to clickbait websites. 
We tend to steer leap second discussions over to the LEAPSECS [1] 
mailing list rather than here on time-nuts [2]. It's been convenient to 
operate both lists this way because it keeps the time-nuts list pretty 
calm while the leap second list tends to be rather polarized, a two 
decades long heated argument on a single topic.

The short answer is that, yes, after many years of consideration and 
maneuvering the idea to eliminate leap seconds in UTC is one step closer 
to happening (resolution 4). The sides have run out of arguments.

On a lesser note, resolution 3 is the addition of new SI prefixes for a 
couple more outrageously large and small units. They have now run out of 
letters.

And, yes, resolution 5 paves the way for an optical clock [re]definition 
of the SI second, which will be fun to watch. They have now run out of 
atoms to try.

Don't worry, leapsecond.com and time-nuts will be around whether leap 
seconds exists or not, whether the SI second is based cesium or not. So 
far not a single optical clock has appeared on eBay ;-)

/tvb

[1] https://pairlist6.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

[2] http://leapsecond.com/time-nuts.htm



On 11/22/2022 10:21 AM, Chris Caudle via time-nuts wrote:
> Did I miss some messages?  I did not see any discussion of the vote to
> retire leap seconds which took place last Friday.  I just saw this in my
> news headlines today:
>
> ...