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more on Re: Leap second fight brewing
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 15:48:39 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: Jonathan Thornburg <jthorn () aei mpg de> Date: July 29, 2005 12:12:52 PM EDT To: David Farber <dave () farber net> Cc: Jonathan Thornburg <jthorn () aei mpg de> Subject: [notspam] Re: [IP] Leap second fight brewing
The US has secretly proposed abolishing the leap second (that is ocassionally added as the earth slows its rotation) claiming "safety" reasons. Evidently this is at the behest of special interests whose software is unable to deal with the additional second.
For a good overview of leap seconds, their advantages, and their disadvantages, see R. A. Nelson et al, "The Leap Second: Its History and Possible Future" Metrologia volume 38 (2001), pages 509-529 There's a free copy of this at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/time/metrologia-leapsecond.pdf as well as a subscription-only copy at the journal's web site, http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0026-1394/38/6/6/me1606.pdf ciao,-- -- Jonathan Thornburg <jthorn () aei mpg de> Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein- Institut), Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/ home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam
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- more on Re: Leap second fight brewing David Farber (Jul 29)