[LEAPSECS] 1.26 microseconds

Poul-Henning Kamp phk at phk.freebsd.dk
Mon Jun 13 17:46:45 EDT 2011


In message <1385BDB6-934E-42BC-8C7E-644B5B45F54D at noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:


>> PS: I read an interesting note recently about how the fact that

>> years have varying lengths have become an issue for determining the

>> "official" half-life of long lived radioactive isotopes: Many

>> geological methods just counted years, but hadn't considered how

>> long those years were.

>

>Reference?


I think it was New Scientist. It was mostly relevant for the really
long half-lifes, millions of years etc. If I remember right, they
chose some definition of how long a year was and then ran into
trouble using "myr" or "ma" or some other abbreviation in a manner
that now conflicted with existing use.

Found it:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20423-push-to-define-year-sparks-time-war.html


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Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
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