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Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 127
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Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 127
"What time is it when the clock strikes half past 62?

Time to change the way we measure time, according to a U.S. government proposal that businesses favor, astronomers abominate and Britain sees as a threat to its venerable standard, Greenwich Mean Time.

Word of the U.S. proposal, made secretly to a United Nations body, began leaking to scientists earlier this month. The plan would simplify the world's timekeeping by making each day last exactly 24 hours. Right now, that's not always the case.

Because the moon's gravity has been slowing down the Earth, it takes slightly longer than 24 hours for the world to rotate completely on its axis. The difference is tiny, but every few years a group that helps regulate global timekeeping, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, tells governments, telecom companies, satellite operators and others to add in an extra second to all clocks to keep them in sync. The adjustment is made on New Year's Eve or the last day of June.

But adding these ad hoc "leap seconds" -- the last one was tacked on in 1998 -- can be a big hassle for computers operating with software programs that never allowed for a 61-second minute, leading to glitches when the extra second passes. "It's a huge deal," said John Yuzdepski, an executive at Symmetricom Inc., of San Jose, Calif., which makes ultraprecise clocks for telecommunications, space and military use."
-By Keith J. Winstein, The Wall Street Journal

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1975362005

"The U.S. effort to abolish leap seconds is also firmly opposed by Britain, which would further lose status as the center of time. From 1884 to 1961, the world set its official clocks to Greenwich Mean Time, based on the actual rise and set of the stars as seen from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, just outside London."

Some astronomers are irritated as well, "This has set off a wave of passionate opposition from astronomers, who argue that removing the link between time and the sun would require making changes to telescopes, changes that would cost between $10,000 and $500,000 per facility. That's because a fancy telescope uses the exact time and the Earth's position for aiming purposes when astronomers tell it to point at a specific star."

Should be interesting how this pans out.

Sincerely,


"My God, it's full of stars!" -2010
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Anonymous
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Interesting indeed! Thanks for posting it.


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