Thanks Lonesome in Massachussets. The ten lords are being expurgated from the song, too. ;^)
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Posted on 11/19/2022 5:02:07 PM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets
The practice of adding ‘leap seconds’ to official clocks to keep them in sync with Earth’s rotation will be put on hold from 2035, the world’s foremost metrology body has decided.
The decision was made by representatives from governments worldwide at the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) outside Paris on 18 November. It means that from 2035, or possibly earlier, astronomical time (known as UT1) will be allowed to diverge by more than one second from coordinated universal time (UTC), which is based on the steady tick of atomic clocks. Since 1972, whenever the two time systems have drifted apart by more than 0.9 seconds, a leap second has been added.
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
Does anybody really know what time it is?
Does anybody really care?
I think we will end up regretting this in the long run.
“because they were averse to leap months.”
I can’t imagine having to wake up an entire month early to get to the office..... However... I would enjoy the extra month off BEFORE I had to get to the office... Gotta love the Hebrews....
Don’t know how they’d react to the 19-year time cycles, which necessitate the leap months.
Yup. That's a fun one. I've been aware of it since Y2K was a thing.
If your programs need to be able to take them into account, then code for it. It doesn't happen very often (see below), but it's not like it should be a surprise to anyone.
Here's the list of past leap seconds. The last one happened in 2017
2272060800 10 # 1 Jan 1972 2287785600 11 # 1 Jul 1972 2303683200 12 # 1 Jan 1973 2335219200 13 # 1 Jan 1974 2366755200 14 # 1 Jan 1975 2398291200 15 # 1 Jan 1976 2429913600 16 # 1 Jan 1977 2461449600 17 # 1 Jan 1978 2492985600 18 # 1 Jan 1979 2524521600 19 # 1 Jan 1980 2571782400 20 # 1 Jul 1981 2603318400 21 # 1 Jul 1982 2634854400 22 # 1 Jul 1983 2698012800 23 # 1 Jul 1985 2776982400 24 # 1 Jan 1988 2840140800 25 # 1 Jan 1990 2871676800 26 # 1 Jan 1991 2918937600 27 # 1 Jul 1992 2950473600 28 # 1 Jul 1993 2982009600 29 # 1 Jul 1994 3029443200 30 # 1 Jan 1996 3076704000 31 # 1 Jul 1997 3124137600 32 # 1 Jan 1999 3345062400 33 # 1 Jan 2006 3439756800 34 # 1 Jan 2009 3550089600 35 # 1 Jul 2012 3644697600 36 # 1 Jul 2015 3692217600 37 # 1 Jan 2017
Thanks Lonesome in Massachussets. The ten lords are being expurgated from the song, too. ;^)
That does not exclude cooperating with international bodies. In point of fact, the U.S. Naval Observatory effectively determined when leap seconds were required, acting through their catspaw the International Earth Rotational Services. The USNO coordinated with observatories around the world, but ultimately ran the show. Congress, around ten years ago, removed responsibility for U.S. timekeeping from USNO and delegated it to NIST. NIST still cooperates with the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, and disseminates time signals, via WWV and WWV-H, that are legal for the United States. But in fact, most time signal dissemination worldwide these days is via GPS, which is steered to USNO Atomic Clock #2, which along with NIST, and USNO AC #1 are contributors to International Atomic Time, TAI, the basis for UTC, and the time scale to which NIST and USNO clocks are steered.
The deeper irony is that the Royal Greenwich Observatory was closed about 20 years ago, and dissolved as an organization. The British Nation Physics Laboratory, who created the first reliable atomic clock in 1954 (on a shoestring budget while NIST was planning a multimillion dollar program(me)) maintain legal time for Britain using a commercial GPS receiver, which while it is good enough for any practical purpose, means that they are dependent on the USNO for timekeeping. BTW, the NPL and USNO cooperated to calibrate the c(a)esium atom and establish the standard that defines the second that we all count nowadays.
So we should have our clocks and weights and whatever be different than everybody else out of sheer cussedness? Seems perfectly reasonable for Congress to say “we’ll use the international standards”.
This actually reduces (for now) the burden on consumer clocks, and most computer time scales. It’s astronomers and navigators who will have problems. My “goto” telescope uses local civil time, but needs to know my latitude and longitude, and whether or not daylight savings time is in effect. One or two seconds shouldn’t make any difference, but eventually, these small slips between time determined by atomic clocks and time determined by earth’s rotation will add up. I suspect that GPS will add a field to assist astronomers and navigators make the correction. It should not require more than a few bytes.
‘Round about 1967 the relationship between the inch and the meter changed. In the United States. Prior to this, in the U.S. one meter was exactly 39.37 inches. Afterwards, one inch was exactly 2.54 centimeters, in agreement with the British Commonwealth. A difference of about two parts in a million. A quibble. But the U.S. Coast and Geological Survey had millions of records going back to the 19th Century. They were not going to “update” them. Hence there are two length standards in the U.S., the “survey mile” and the “statute mile”. The former based on a meter equal to 39.37 inches, the latter to an inch equal to 2.54 centimeters.
Do the instruments actually count vibrations of Cesium atoms?
There is that “English System” that the English don’t use and the metric system which many in the United States don’t use.
Didn’t say that. But the Constitution says we don’t allow such “international” bodies to dictate those things. Our continued use of what we call the English system at least shows the independence of the USA in that regard has not died out.
The UN in particular has a charter that is patterned after the 1936 USSR constitution. That’s the last thing I want dictating anything to the USA.
When cooperation turns to subservience, that goes against the Constitution.
Irresponsible idiots! The only reason they’re doing this is because they know they won’t be around in 15 million years when it’s snowing in August!
No it says Congress sets the standard. It doesn’t preclude them from deciding international standards are fine. We use way more metric than people like to think. It’s just measurements man, not a hill worth dying on.
Actually the English use a lot more English measurements than they let on. Yeah all the “official” stuff is metric, but people still like the other stuff. There was a lot of kerfuffle about that with the EU, that they’re now out of.
After the French Revolution there was a metric calendar of sorts.
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