more on Re: Leap second fight brewing

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jonathan Thornburg <jthorn () aei mpg de>
Date: July 29, 2005 12:12:52 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: Jonathan Thornburg <jthorn () aei mpg de>
Subject: [notspam] Re: [IP] Leap second fight brewing


> The US has secretly proposed abolishing the leap second (that is
> ocassionally added as the earth slows its rotation) claiming "safety"
> reasons. Evidently this is at the behest of special interests whose
> software is unable to deal with the additional second.

For a good overview of leap seconds, their advantages, and their
disadvantages, see
    R. A. Nelson et al,
    "The Leap Second: Its History and Possible Future"
    Metrologia volume 38 (2001), pages 509-529
There's a free copy of this at
  http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/time/metrologia-leapsecond.pdf
as well as a subscription-only copy at the journal's web site,
  http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0026-1394/38/6/6/me1606.pdf

ciao,

--  
-- Jonathan Thornburg <jthorn () aei mpg de>
   Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein- 
Institut),
   Golm, Germany, "Old Europe"     http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/ 
home.html
   "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
    powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
                                      -- quote by Freire / poster by  
Oxfam



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