[LEAPSECS] alternative to smearing

[Preben Nørager]

Dear Zefram, thank you for your comments. I have learned a lot from them,
and will only discuss a few.


On Mon Jan 9 13:57:13 EST 2017 you write:


"No, there's no tie between Julian Dates and apparent solar time. JDs can
be used equally well with apparent and mean solar time. JDs are in fact
also used with a great many other time scales that do not maintain
synchronisation with these."


Julian days count solar days. I don't know about the other timescales, but
julian days somehow count from solar noon, and that is why I wrote the
julian period count apparent solar days. Without leap seconds in the civil
time, then in a very long time-span the number of calendar days not
nessesarily match the number of solar days. So in a very long time-span the
number of julian days can no longer be used without cultural bias. And when
julian days can no longer be used without cultural bias the scientific
community will have to choose between julian days and the gregorian
calendar.


On Mon Jan 9 14:58:54 EST 2017 you write:


"If the use of UTC (with leap seconds) were abolished for civil time, in
favour of a TI time scale that amounts to TAI plus some fixed offset, then
it would of course be necessary for TI to be divided up into days. This
would be required in order to plug TI into the existing civil horological
mechanisms that have evolved with UT.  It would look much like the same as
how TAI is conventionally represented.  But even with the division into
days having become necessary rather than merely conventional, there is
still a totally free choice as to which calendar to use to label the days.
Indeed, it is inevitable that each locality adopting TI would continue to
use whatever calendar it had formerly used with UT."


When it becomes necessary to plug TI into the existing civil horological
mechanisms that have evolved I don't think there will be "a totally free
choice as to which calendar to use to label the days". I think the only
choice will be the gregorian calendar, because that calendar is the only
one in universal use. Of course theoretically it will be a free choice, but
practically the calendar chosen will be the gregorian one. Religions who
use either a solar, a lunar or a luni/solar calendar will still use their
calendar for religious purposes, but for civil and scientific purposes the
gregorian calendar will be the only one to use.

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