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

[OESY]

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... in 1998 -- can be a big hassle for computers operating with software programs....

On Jan. 1, 1996, the addition of a leap second made computers at Associated Press Radio crash and start broadcasting the wrong taped programs. 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. And in 2003, a leap-second bug made GPS receivers from Motorola Inc. briefly show customers the time as half past 62 o'clock.

...Because of these problems, the U.S. government last year quietly proposed abolishing leap seconds to the International Telecommunications Union, the U.N. body that tells the Earth Rotation Service how to keep time....

[OESY]

A slowing earth? Secret seconds (no, not RFK)? Longer days? Global warming? Melting ice caps? Drowning cities? Freezing temperatures?

This is outrageous! It's Mother Nature gone wild. There was no consultation! Inadequate documentation. Bush is to blame.

We're gonna take this message to The Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Phobos, Deimos, Jupiter, Metis, Adrastea, Amalthea, Thebe, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Leda, Himalia, Lysithea, Elara, Ananke, Carme, Pasiphae, Sinope, Saturn, Pan, Atlas, Prometheus, Pandora, Epimetheus, Janus, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Telesto, Calypso, Dione, Helene, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion, Iapetus, Phoebe, Uranus, Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Belinda, Puck, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, Caliban, Sycorax, Prospero, Setebos, Stephano, Trinculo, Neptune, Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Galatea, Larissa, Proteus, Triton, Nereid, Pluto, Charon, Comet Halley, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, The Kuiper Belt, the Oort Cloud, Sedna, 951 Gaspra, 243 Ida, 253 Mathilde, 433 Eros and Other Solar Systems. Yeeeeeaaaaaarrrrrrrhhhhhhhh!

[Red Badger]

I thought Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was destroyed........

[Tenacious 1]

Don't confuse him with facts.

[cripplecreek]

It was, in spectacular fashion.

[JRios1968]

Just like Howard Dean's presidential dream...

[Tennessee_Bob]

Nature never destroys - only mankind destroys. Nature recycles, but it never destroys. That bear is recycling that moose, the mouse is recycling the cheese, and Jupiter is recycling Shoemaker-Levy 9.

[Red Badger]

...in spectacular fashion.

It was gay?..........

[Red Badger]

Yes, But man SAW it happen, therefore ipso facto it's Bush's fault........

[JustAnotherOkie]

Does anyone really know what time it is?

[Willie Green]

according to a U.S. government proposal that businesses favor,

So the Anointed One wants to defy the universal laws of physics to pander to the international banking community?
What a pathetic nincompoop!!!
Dubya is no different than Algore when it comes to Big Government junk science.

[cripplecreek]

It did penetrate Jupiter pretty deep.

[Captain Rhino]

Can't belive it hasn't been posted yet. Terrible tension building...don't know if I can resist...okay, I'll say it:

IT'S ALL BUSH'S FAULT!!

Aaahh...I feel better.

[Red Badger]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Red Badger]

AND FROM THE REAR..........

[jammer]

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

[babyface00]

I don't have a WSJ subscription, so maybe this is explained in the article...

What do they mean by "The plan would simplify the world's timekeeping by making each day last exactly 24 hours".

Does this mean we're going to take the current rotation of the earth around its axis, and divide it by 24 to get hours, which will change our definitions of minutes, seconds, etc?

If we do that, won't we have to keep re-evaluating our time as the Earth slows down?

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?

[xp38]

This is not an issue I will lose a second of sleep over.

[Willie Green]

Does anyone really know what time it is?

I don't.
Does anybody really care?
If so I can't imagine why.
We've all got time enough to cry.

[Blood of Tyrants]

You beat me to it.

[cripplecreek]

It was definitely flaming when it went in.