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by lmm
4795 days ago
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>I suppose my point is 'it just happens to be unpleasantly hard problem' - given that a great number of specialists have put serious time in thinking about it trying to solve it, I have a very difficult time imagining that the solution (or satisfactory answer) is as simple as 'just blame astronomers'. As far as I can tell the proposal before the ITU (replace leap seconds with leap hours, with a view to abolishing leap hours once any incompatibilities with national laws have been resolved) solves all the problems quite nicely. I'm not entirely clear why they voted to defer a decision until 2015, but I'm not aware of any serious objections to the proposal. |
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The only objections that I've ever heard about are astronomers who are annoyed that this piece of traditional authority is being taken from them. My obviously unsympathetic attitude is that they used to serve an important role, but their once critical role in precision timekeeping has been obsolete since the development of the atomic clock. It is time to recognize that.