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Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work?


From: Steve Allen <sla () ucolick org>
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2012 16:59:54 -0700

Tony Finch dot at dotat.at wrote
No that is not correct, or at least it's nowhere near as simple as that.
The atomic second was matched to the second of ephemeris time, and that
was based on Newcomb's tables of the sun, which in effect used the average
length of the second from the 1800s.
http://ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/dutc.html

Last fall we held a meeting to consider how UTC might be changed and
what the implications of leaps seconds were.  The proceedings fill 400
pages of a book.

For the sound bite version (only 3 pictures) of leap seconds
http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/amsci.html

For a view of the international legal mess caused by leap seconds
http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/epochtime.html

For a blow-by-blow review of the international bureaucratic regulatory
situation for leap seconds see
http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/onlinebib.html

For a worked example that could alleviate the disagreement between
POSIX and leap seconds, and which might break the international
stalemate
http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/right+gps.html

In there are also links to those 400 pages of the book, but I suggest
that this forum is not the best place to rehash this information.

--
Steve Allen                 <sla () ucolick org>                WGS-84 (GPS)
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