Re: Our (US) $s at work.

From: Carroll Grigsby (cgrigs_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 07/31/05

  • Next message: Paul F. Johnson: "Re: MRI Print server" 
    Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 19:45:25 -0400
To: For users of Fedora Core releases <fedora-list@redhat.com>

    Wolfgang S. Rupprecht wrote:
    >>That doesn't work. 13 does not divide evenly into the 365.24 rotations
    >>the Earth performs as it revolves around the Sun once. Nor does 28
    >>divide evenly into the 27 days and 8 hours that elapse for every cycle
    >>of the moon.
    >
    >
    > We obviously need to move a large number of massive weights down near
    > the equator to slow the earth down till we achieve a nice round number
    > of days per year. Say 256. Each year the International Earth
    > Rotation Service http://www.iers.org/iers/ could issue a report
    > showing how well the tuning was working and if weights needed to be
    > added or removed. ;-)
    >
    > More seriously, I was just struggling with leap seconds this morning,
    > trying to reconcile un*x time, GPS time, UTC time and TAI time. What
    > is the current feeling in the linux community with respect to leap
    > seconds? Does the kernel's time still jump around when a leap second
    > is applied or subtracted or can the corrections be applied in
    > user-space like the DST corrections are?
    >
    > -wolfgang

    Funny that you should bring this up. When I was a boy engineer at Bell
    Labs, I received a technical memorandum that proposed changing the
    earth's orbit and rotation speed to accomplish pretty much what you've
    suggested. IIRC, the writer proposed a 400 (or 500?) day year; each day
    would be divided into 25 (or 20) hours so as to get 10000 hours per
    year. Smaller time measurements were to be in decimal parts of an hour.
    The writer would accomplish this by firing a great quantity of rocket
    engines deployed along the equator. His proposal concluded with a cost
    study expressed in kGNP (kilo gross national products).

    The memorandum was dated April 1, 1962.

    -- cmg 

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