[LEAPSECS] alternative to smearing

[John Sauter]

On Wed, 2017-01-04 at 19:04 +0100, Preben Nørager wrote:
> On Wed, 2017-01-04 at 18:11 +0100, John Sauter wrote:
> 
> "I am curious: since you do not think my moral concern is future
> generations, what do you think it is?"
> 
> I think your moral concern is the misguided belief, that abolishing
> leap seconds will mean our official time will depend solely on cesium
> atoms, with no connection to the rotation of the earth. But that
> belief is in my view misguided, because, as we have already agreed
> upon, our gregorian calender keeps our time in synchronization with
> the seasons, as they appear on earth because of the rotation of the
> earth around the sun. So the connection between our time and earth
> rotation is in that way everlasting - with leap seconds or without.
> But maybe you are a Brit who would just like to se british time
> correspond to universal time forever? 
> 
> Preben

Thank you for answering my question; it turns out that our positions
are more in agreement than I had thought.

I do not believe that abolishing leap seconds will mean our official
time will depend solely on Cesium atoms, with no connection to the
rotation of the Earth.  Rather I believe that abolishing leap seconds
will require a future generation to re-synchronize official time with
the rotation of the Earth, as was done with the seasons in 1582, and
that it is wrong of us to force that burden on them for our
convenience.

Imagine that you are Julius Caesar, reforming the calendar.  You have a
choice of leap year algorithms: every four years, or a more complex
formula that keeps the calendar closer to the astronomical year.  Your
astronomers urge the latter, but you are conflicted: the simpler
formula is more likely to be applied accurately, but the consequence is
that a future generation will have to skip 10 days and adopt the more
complex calculation anyway.  What is the right choice to make?

In Caesar's case the civil servants who managed the calendar after his
death couldn't even count to 4 accurately, but computers are better
today.

By the way, I am not a Brit; I am a mostly-retired computer programmer
living in New Hampshire, USA.
    John Sauter (John_Sauter at systemeyescomputerstore.com)

-- 
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