Stopping the leap second - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: mendip_discovery
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 23, 2022, 12:57:34 pm
content: Just reading that BPIM have decided to scrap the leap second.Fearing that we may end up doing a negative leap second to correct things.Human readable,https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/22/leap_seconds_discontinued/TimeNuts,https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/64811223/Resolutions-2022.pdf/281f3160-fc56-3e63-dbf7-77b76500990fEDIT: To fix a broken link.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 23, 2022, 01:06:58 pm
content: whats the worst that can happen?

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 23, 2022, 03:23:38 pm
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on November 23, 2022, 01:06:58 pmThe WORST? On paper we will all lose 1 second out our lives. But I suppose that to a bean counter that 1 second each times 8 billion people is a very significant number of man-years* so they will argue that that is enough to justify banning leap-seconds.* I'll let someone else do the math.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 23, 2022, 06:54:34 pm
content: Good riddance! Now let's get rid of summer & winter time.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 01:25:32 am
content: Quote from: Stray Electron on November 23, 2022, 03:23:38 pmI am just waiting for a new Y2K in 20 years caused by this, my gut feeling says not to mess with it.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 11:05:10 am
content: Stopping the use of leap seconds should not cause any Y2K like problems. There is a slim chance a few systems may get upset with a negative leap second, but this would be a temporary problem - nothing Y2K like.Gitting rid of the leap seconds would cause the astronomical / solar time to be out of sync with the leagal time. Normal people would not really notice unless it sums up to a large difference. This is not expected to happen in the next 1000 years. A few people in astronomy may have to add the time shift in the few cases they really need it. Chances are this would only be a minor nuancis and even they would often not really mind the difference. Maybe delay the maned flight to mars by a few seconds.

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 11:30:22 am
content: Leap seconds and leap years are real adjustments needed to keep Earth time observed by humans synced with Solar time. If enough negative leap seconds are ignored, then in time, we will need a negative leap year, or maybe a negative leap month long before that. (I realize there will probably be much bigger problems for the human species before that happens.)As for Summer and Winter time, I am all for eliminating them entirely. They are entirely artificial. In the US, there is a push by our politicians (both parties) to make Summer time (aka DST) permanent. I am strongly opposed to that. Not surprisingly, one of its proponents is a politician from Texas (very South state). He is supposed to be very bright but apparently doesn't appreciate the dangers to school bus riders at 7AM from late October to March in our more northern states like Ohio, particularly in rural areas with 2-lane roads and 55 mph speed limits. It is pitch dark at those times when on DST and you see a lot of cars fail to stop for those buses.

author: DavidKo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 01:32:43 pm
content: Quote from: jpanhalt on November 24, 2022, 11:30:22 amIt is nonsense to discuss which time you will take. There will be always 1h difference between meridians and what is good for one meridian that will be bad for some people close +1h or -1 h. Most painful it will be for people behind the meridians. I must say that in winter it is visible when I travel to west Germany from east Czech. This sh.tt. discussions stopped the cancelation of summer/winter time in EU which is placed in 3 time zones. Who cares what time you have when you need to adjust the time during travel. When the country wants different time than she should use time which she wants. Instead of canceling the changes, we will indefinitely discuss if summer or winter time is better like total idiots. I think that in democracy it will never be solved - Russia solved that without issues in 2010. US and EU have only discussions if one or another is better.

author: mfro
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 03:15:15 pm
content: Quote from: Stray Electron on November 23, 2022, 03:23:38 pmActually, it would be more than that for many as there are still lots of stupid systems around (SAP, for example, being one of the most prominent ones) that can't deal with backward adjustments as they would then potentially start scheduled tasks multiple times and other nonsense. You actually have to shut down such systems during the adjustment (regardless if it would be just 1 second only or one hour (summer time switch)).

author: TheSteve
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 06:20:42 pm
content: I will miss the leap second. A place I once worked at had millions of users using systems all synchronized via GPS. The first time a leap second was happening with the deployed system was a pretty big deal. Lots of engineers in the office overnight in case there was an issue. It was well tested and there were no issues but if there had been, it would have been so very ugly.

author: maat
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2022, 01:00:15 am
content: IMHO, good riddance.Time should be monotonic. This solves the issue of keeping lists with leap seconds, that must be regularly updated... UTC should be locked to TAI.This makes logging data a lot more sensible. The DST nonsense requires you to plot data in UTC to prevent either discontinuities or weird time axes twice a year. But since they fiddle with UTC as well means more gymnastics.Assuming a linear trend, earth slows down by about 10 mins in 1000 years. So I guess people in 1000 years will be smart enough to, at one day, move lunch to 1210. Life doesn't really care about time at those scales, so I would rather see timekeeping optimized for instruments...

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2022, 07:16:52 am
content: Quote from: TheSteve on November 24, 2022, 06:20:42 pmexactly what I mean, its a global change, for real

author: mendip_discovery
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 26, 2022, 11:52:29 am
content: First chance I have had to read the CPIM document,QuoteSo all I can see is they are thinking that making these adjustments all the time isn't actually helping and is possibly causing issues that may cause rather negative impacts on the use of UTC. Especially if they have the step back for a second. That could be rather y2k ish.Recently over athttps://www.blitzortung.orgthey had a significant number of detectors go down due to a rollover issue on GPS chips they use so its a problem that can still get us after we learnt from y2k.I actually like the Daylight Saving changes. They are a good excuse for people to go around adjusting clocks.I note that the next resolution is also time related and on the subject of the second,QuoteandQuoteandQuoteThe day is going to widen its specifications while the second is possibly getting a tighter specification.