[LEAPSECS] Cheating means more planning, not less

Jonathan E. Hardis jhardis at tcs.wap.org
Sun Dec 28 09:00:31 EST 2008



>Correct. However, the die was cast on this in 1958 when the second

>was defined in terms of atomic behavior.


It was 1967.


>At that point, the game was up, since the basic unit of time was

>decoupled from the day. We transitioned from having rubber seconds,

>to having rubber days. I suppose we could push this back further

>when the second was defined in terms of the mean solar day in 1900


...which happened in 1956 (ratified in 1960).


References:

http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/second.html
http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html

- Jonathan


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