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Alan
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Leap second teaser

December 31st, 2016, 9:53 pm

"Thanks to hundreds of records of lunar and solar eclipses carved in clay tablets and written into dynastic histories, modern scientists have determined that the speed at which Earth spins on its axis has slowed by 1.8 milliseconds per day ...

If humanity had been measuring time with an atomic clock that started running back in 700 BC, today that clock would read 7 p.m. when the sun is directly overhead rather than noon"

Ignoring the awkward phrasing, does the second statement essentially follow from the first, or did the reporter make a gross arithmetic blunder?

From:
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencen ... story.html

Try not to read the LA Times comments before deciding. 
 
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Traden4Alpha
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Re: Leap second teaser

December 31st, 2016, 11:33 pm

If on January 1st, 699 BC, the Earth lost exactly 1.8 msec/day of rotational velocity, it would amount to 0.0018*365.25*2717 = 1786 seconds or about 1/2 hour.

If the loss of rotational speed between then and now was linear (it's NOT!) then the loss would about 15 minutes.

Only if the rate of loss were 1.8 msec/day/century would the answer be 7 PM.

Perhaps there was a typo in the units if the reporter or eager-beaver editor removed the "/century" part of the term.
 
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Alan
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Re: Leap second teaser

January 2nd, 2017, 12:27 am

Well done. Sorry, the eager-beaver editor was apparently me. Unless the article has been edited since I posted the excerpt, the reporter said "1.8 milliseconds per day over the course of a century ...", so all looks well and you spotted my inadvertent omission.
 
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Traden4Alpha
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Re: Leap second teaser

January 3rd, 2017, 12:43 am

Technically, the reporter should have said "over the course of each/every century" but even that falsely implies a steady linear effect.

Here's the short-term pattern of deviations in day length over that past half century:

Image
As you can see, days are actually slightly shorter now then they were in 1972.
 
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outrun
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Re: Leap second teaser

January 3rd, 2017, 2:18 pm

Should correlate a bit with this:
Image

I know someone who would decide if he would go skiing in the alps based on these deviations.
 
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Traden4Alpha
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Re: Leap second teaser

January 3rd, 2017, 2:24 pm

Indeed! Melting glaciers and snow fields cause the rotation rate to accelerate. Water reservoirs, volcanic flows, and rocket launches cause it to decelerate.

When the Dutch pull a bicycle out of the canal, the days get longer!
 
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Cuchulainn
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Re: Leap second teaser

January 18th, 2017, 2:16 pm

When the Dutch pull a bicycle out of the canal, the days get longer!
Correlation or causation?
 
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Cuchulainn
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Re: Leap second teaser

January 18th, 2017, 2:28 pm

When the Dutch pull a bicycle out of the canal, the days get longer!
Correlation or causation?

The world after Jan 1 1970 can be summarised by std::time_t.
 
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Traden4Alpha
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Re: Leap second teaser

January 18th, 2017, 3:46 pm

When the Dutch pull a bicycle out of the canal, the days get longer!
Correlation or causation?

The world after Jan 1 1970 can be summarised by std::time_t.
Hmmmm... It looks like std::time_t may not know about leap seconds and will get further and further behind as actual time goes on.

It won't be long before we'll haveJulian and Gregorian versions of std::time_t.

And summarizing the world with an integer!??!?!?!?!??!?!
 
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Cuchulainn
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Re: Leap second teaser

January 19th, 2017, 9:11 pm

When the Dutch pull a bicycle out of the canal, the days get longer!
Correlation or causation?

The world after Jan 1 1970 can be summarised by std::time_t.
Hmmmm... It looks like std::time_t may not know about leap seconds and will get further and further behind as actual time goes on.

It won't be long before we'll haveJulian and Gregorian versions of std::time_t.

And summarizing the world with an integer!??!?!?!?!??!?!
No,, 148.413!
 
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Traden4Alpha
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Joined: September 20th, 2002, 8:30 pm

Re: Leap second teaser

January 19th, 2017, 10:04 pm

Correlation or causation?

The world after Jan 1 1970 can be summarised by std::time_t.
Hmmmm... It looks like std::time_t may not know about leap seconds and will get further and further behind as actual time goes on.

It won't be long before we'll haveJulian and Gregorian versions of std::time_t.

And summarizing the world with an integer!??!?!?!?!??!?!
No,, 148.413!
That's better!

The diligent student should be able to figure the world out with just paper and pencil.