[time-nuts] UTC and leap seconds

[Steve Rooke]

This whole time thing is based upon some arbitrary standard anyway. As soon
as the first leap-second was added and short while after the second was
defined as 9,192,631,770 cycles of radiation corresponding to the transition
between two energy levels of the caesium-133 atom. Trying to keep some
standard aligned with the Earth's rotation is an exercise in futility, but
what do you do otherwise.

Just look at your wristwatch, that's the correct time :) Your just working
to a different standard than other peoples. It would be nice to have a
Universe'al time though, but I'm sure that would not be constant either, at
least very clever minds have said. I really like that idea, you could have
your holidays when time is really dilated and only go to work when it is
compressed :) Please note the :)

Still, without leap-seconds the Sun would be up early by 34 seconds now and
you'd be late for work :)  Think about that one :)

Steve

On 11 June 2010 22:39, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:

> In message <20100611102543.67641136087 at hamburg.alientech.net>, Mike S
> writes:
> >At 06:03 AM 6/11/2010, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote...
>
> >I assume you mean use a clock to measure the earth's rotation, using
> >quasars as a positional reference. That's circular logic.
>
> Obviously, any measurement of earths rotation has to involve
> circular logic :-)
>
> If time changed rate fast enough to explain the observed changed
> rate of earths rotation, we would long ago have measured drifts
> in other fundamental natural constants which involve time.
>
> For instance spectral emission lines from atoms in distant astronomical
> objects.
>
> If these other constants "magically" changed at the necessary
> complimentary rate, then we are back at the old joke:
>
> "If somebody took away all of reality last night, and replaced it
> with an exact copy, how could you tell ?"
>
> --
> Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
> phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
> FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
> Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
>
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-- 
Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV & G8KVD
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. -
Einstein