WSJ: Why the U.S. Wants To End the Link Between Time and Sun - Astronomers Say Wait a Sec

Wall Street Journal ^ | July 29, 2005 | KEITH J. WINSTEIN

[Plutarch]

In 1997, the Russian global positioning system, known as Glonass, was broken for 20 hours after a transmission to the country's satellites to add a leap second went awry.

A Russian military system went awry? Noooo way.

[ImaGraftedBranch]

Hmmm.... "He'll think to change times and laws...."

Sounds like I've read that somewhere.....OH YEAH....Revelation.

[Blood of Tyrants]

My vcr says 12:00.

[Red Badger]

and looked like "a string of pearls"...........

[MikefromOhio]

So the Anointed One wants to defy the universal laws of physics to pander to the international banking community?

Troll.

[MikefromOhio]

yeah mine says it is 12:00 and it's blinking....

[leftcoaster]

Does anyone really know what time it is?

You mean right now?

[burzum]

Oh give me a break. Science is about measuring, not regulating. It doesn't matter how we define a day, month or year. It's not as if a UN regulation is going to actually have an effect on how the Earth spins and orbits the sun. We could define an 80 hour day and still have no effect. I'm even will to go as far as saying that we could define a 150 hour day while not having the Earth fall into the sun.

My point is that our definitions are for our convenience. And it is more convenient to have a constant 24 hours without pandering to the UN than to have some correction factor that will affect noone's schedule (and it won't affect scientists because they are smart enough to add the correction factor if they need to).

[Willie Green]

Aren't you getting a little tired of the hackneyed "it's Bush's fault" sarcasm mantra in every damned thread?

You mean the one that's chanted by the 'bot sycophants every time he acts like a bonehead?

Nope.

[Tenacious 1]

"Aren't you getting a little tired of the hackneyed "it's Bush's fault" sarcasm mantra in every damned thread?"


It's Bush's fault that it's in every damned thread.

(I'm really sorry about that. It's my first time. I'm so immature.)

[Willie Green]

brainwashed lemming.

[Tenacious 1]

None of this matters. We can control the length of the days and exactly how much daylight we receive from the sun at anyone point on the earth by simply manipulating the universe with that creative little tool they called "daylight savings time."

What's the big deal?

[MikefromOhio]

ow...

that taught me!!!

LOL

it must REALLY suck to be you right now with the economy growing and jobs being created faster than they are being lost and unemployment going down HUH?


LOL


stupid stupid troll

[Rocket1968]

I think you left out Uranus. :)

[MikefromOhio]

I think your boy AlGore wants to make these endangered, but certainly all TROLLS are endangered on FR....

[expat_panama]

..Dubya is no different than Algore when it comes to Big Government junk science...

Politics is lots of fun, but there are a few things that actually don't have anything to do with politics. The question here is  whether we want to say 24 hours is equal to an earth's rotation, equal to 1/365.25 of a trip around the sun, or to always be the same amount of time regardless of the earth's and the sun's tiny variations..

We're taking a vote.   Lots of people and I vote for it being the same. 

[babyface00]

Personally, I don't care, and there isn't much I could do about it if I did care, but I'm curious what, exactly, the U.N. is attempting to do.

At least if the U.N. is worrying about trivial things like this, they'll have less time to do the really dangerous things they're usually contemplating.

[Incorrigible]

Or, are they going to take the Earth's rotation around the sun as a year, and calculate back from there, which would make midnight creap backwards ever so slowly over the years away from the actual midnight based on the earth's rotation around its axis?

It's the latter.

The proposal calls for adding a "leap hour" every 500 to 600 years to compensate for sunrise getting later over time.

Despite the whining of the Euro-weenies, it would be possible to maintain two time systems, one with the occasional leap second and one with the leap hour, simultaneously so the world's largest telescopes can still function normally.

[babyface00]

Thanks!

I guess none of us will live long enough to notice the difference anyhow...

[Incorrigible]

Gentlemen, gentlemen!

Mike, every website needs it's provocateur and Willie is a fine one at that.  Give him some props.

Willie, if you want to be a provocateur, you gotta be able to take some lumps without getting personal.  Mike's alright.