[LEAPSECS] Leap Seconds schedule prior to 1972

John Sauter John_Sauter at systemeyescomputerstore.com
Wed Apr 27 07:59:51 EDT 2016


On Mon, 2016-04-25 at 13:28 -0400, Brooks Harris wrote:
> 
>  Yup. But "proleptic UTC" as you are doing it is a useful
> engineering     approximation for "civil time" purposes on Earth. It
> gets a little dicey if you ask what proleptic UTC time it was when
> the impact that created the moon occurred. Were there Leap Seconds
> before that?
> -Brooks

It is not my intent that proleptic UTC with leap seconds should ever be
considered a civil time, any more than proleptic Gregorian is
considered a civil time.  Yes, there were leap seconds before the
impact that created the moon.  Leap seconds are defined by atomic time
and the rotation rate of the Earth, so proleptic UTC with leap seconds
can, in principle, be extended back to the Earth's beginning.
    John Sauter (John_Sauter at systemeyescomputerstore.com)
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