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Why the U.S. Wants To End the Link Between Time and Sun

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Re: Why the U.S. Wants To End the Link Between Time and Sun

#31

Post by sonnekki »

patheman wrote: post #16
sonnekki wrote: post #11

Leap seconds are a work-around to make the 24-hour clock keep time correctly. The reason so many problems occurred was a combination of insufficient programming, but also the affect an inaccurate system. I'm not sure what a correct system should be, but I know that it can't be based on the Earth, the sun, or any one galaxy. In order to have accurate time, it must be external to all of these things, like a meter stick…

"3:00 pm" is in the middle of the night, the time to wake up for work will always "change".. well, one time .. but do you !really! care about how the folks in +600 yrs measure time? I'd guess they invent some kind of "glacial-period-light-saving-time" by then...

Well, we're still using the Gregorian Calendar, and according to Wikipedia, that was released in 1582 [1]. When designing a system as eternal as time, I believe that it should still be easily usable in 100, 600, or 10,000 years; on any planet, and in any galaxy.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar

Re: Why the U.S. Wants To End the Link Between Time and Sun

#32

Post by pixie_ »

adjwilli wrote: post #15

I was hoping this was a more radical proposal like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time was. Our current way of measuring time is absurd. It starts as base 1000 with milliseconds, then base 60 with seconds and minutes, then 24 for hours, 7 for days, 4.3whatever for months or 28-31 however you want to track it. I like that China only has one time zone for the entire country. We should all go by UTC times…

Swatch Internet Time sounds awful.

Your idea to go from intuitive measurements of time to abstract measurements sounds awful.

A single timezone for a 3,000 mile wide country sounds awful.

Re: Why the U.S. Wants To End the Link Between Time and Sun

#33

Post by wmf »

lutusp wrote: post #19
freehunter wrote: post #9

I fail to see how this is an attack on science or on Europe. That's just hyperbole. Making time consistent to prevent having to add time or remove time just makes sense. Time is a unit of measurement. We don't redefine the foot just because the new king has 10" feet instead of 12" feet. Time being connected to the sun is a relic of the days before accurate time-keeping methods. One day should always be one day. To re…

> I suppose one could say that noon should always be noon ... Yes, but by allowing our clocks to go out of sync with the natural time of noon, a relationship controlled by orbits rather than clocks, this proposal would prevent that. Over time noon (highest solar position in the local sky) would drift away from noon as given by a clock. I especially like the part where this proposal's advocates dismiss those who use a…

I think a leap hour makes sense because it could be integrated into DST (it wouldn't be an actual leap hour; you'd just change your timezone offset). If DST still exists hundreds of years from now.

Re: Why the U.S. Wants To End the Link Between Time and Sun

#34

Post by macspoofing »

adjwilli wrote: post #15

I was hoping this was a more radical proposal like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time was. Our current way of measuring time is absurd. It starts as base 1000 with milliseconds, then base 60 with seconds and minutes, then 24 for hours, 7 for days, 4.3whatever for months or 28-31 however you want to track it. I like that China only has one time zone for the entire country. We should all go by UTC times…

Our current way seems to work fairly well. Certainly it's not bad enough to have a complete, worldwide paradigm shift.

Re: Why the U.S. Wants To End the Link Between Time and Sun

#36

Post by freehunter »

lutusp wrote: post #19
freehunter wrote: post #9

I fail to see how this is an attack on science or on Europe. That's just hyperbole. Making time consistent to prevent having to add time or remove time just makes sense. Time is a unit of measurement. We don't redefine the foot just because the new king has 10" feet instead of 12" feet. Time being connected to the sun is a relic of the days before accurate time-keeping methods. One day should always be one day. To re…

> I suppose one could say that noon should always be noon ... Yes, but by allowing our clocks to go out of sync with the natural time of noon, a relationship controlled by orbits rather than clocks, this proposal would prevent that. Over time noon (highest solar position in the local sky) would drift away from noon as given by a clock. I especially like the part where this proposal's advocates dismiss those who use a…

How long would it take for noon to be mid-night (as in middle of the night)? Centuries? By then, one would hope we're dealing with the bigger issue of how to coordinate time between two or more different planets or solar systems. As it stands, a certain section of scientists have to do the translation between the length differences of Earth days and Martian days.

It does provide a nice discussion point.

Re: Why the U.S. Wants To End the Link Between Time and Sun

#37

Post by cyarvin »

("America! Fsck yeah!" I mean, some of us USans, proud sponsors of WIPO and other fine agreements, never thought we'd see the day our international representatives would be in the right. Sadly that day appears to be... 2005.)

Leap seconds are an abomination against nature: they make math not work on time. In chronological (atomic) time, math on time is stateless and referentially transparent. Like math. In sidereal time, it... isn't.

The general use of sidereal time is a gigantic global complexification with trivial cosmetic benefits to one specialized profession - astronomy. Unfortunately, it is also the astronomers who have been put in charge of time standardization, so the disaster will probably continue.

The right way to treat time as a programmer, if you're really serious about time, is to treat sidereal time as a display mode, like a timezone, and work internally in proper chronological time (eg, GPS time). Unfortunately the leap second system is a timezone that varies over time. But at least the complexity is isolated in the presentation layer.

Re: Why the U.S. Wants To End the Link Between Time and Sun

#38

Post by sonnekki »

T-hawk wrote: post #23
sonnekki wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Noon should always be noon In other words, given a point on Earth (or any planet) and it's angle relative to the sun it orbits, when that point aligns exactly with and faces the center of the sun, it is noon. Consider this: The way everyone refers to time is "X Units before noon", much like the 24-hour clock (no am/pm), except 0 is noon. The key is that X must be flexible, it should have no maximum, and no minimum.…

This is not literally true. The period between solar noons oscillates and varies up to tens of seconds away from precisely 12 hours, thanks to the differing orbital speed of the Earth between perihelion and aphelion. What you're referring to is "mean noon", true solar noon averaged over the course of a year. See "mean sun" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_sun More complications arise from the position of the Moon.…

This is amazing stuff. Thanks! I agree that arguing over leap seconds is trivial. We're at a good enough point now, assuming leap seconds are handled correctly, such that accounting for those seconds keeps us on track.

Re: Why the U.S. Wants To End the Link Between Time and Sun

#40

Post by lmm »

pixie_ wrote: post #32
adjwilli wrote: post #15

I was hoping this was a more radical proposal like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time was. Our current way of measuring time is absurd. It starts as base 1000 with milliseconds, then base 60 with seconds and minutes, then 24 for hours, 7 for days, 4.3whatever for months or 28-31 however you want to track it. I like that China only has one time zone for the entire country. We should all go by UTC times…

Swatch Internet Time sounds awful. Your idea to go from intuitive measurements of time to abstract measurements sounds awful. A single timezone for a 3,000 mile wide country sounds awful.

Single timezone for a large country works very well. It makes it much easier to arrange a phone call or meeting with someone on the other side of it (you still need to know what the difference is to know you're not asking them to be there before breakfast or after supper, but you never get the failure mode where you both think you've arranged a different time). And it can encourage businesses to be flexible about working hours, since mandating 9-5 in all their branches is obviously insane.
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