[tz] Negative leap seconds in mainstream media

[Jonathan Leffler]

There were a number of articles about a week ago with some details about
the amount by which the earth is spinning faster.

One such is:
https://www.space.com/earth-spinning-faster-negative-leap-second.html

It says, in part:

The year 2020 was already faster than usual, astronomically speaking (cue
> sighs of relief). According to Time and Date, Earth broke the previous
> record for shortest astronomical day, set in 2005, 28 times. That year's
> shortest day, July 5, saw Earth complete a rotation 1.0516 milliseconds
> faster than 86,400 seconds. The shortest day in 2020 was July 19, when the
> planet completed one spin 1.4602 milliseconds faster than 86,400 seconds.


That appears to be a report from Live Science — I've not tracked down the
original.


On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 7:57 AM Koning, Paul <Paul.Koning at dell.com> wrote:

>
>
> > On Jan 12, 2021, at 9:48 AM, Steve Allen <sla at ucolick.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> > [EXTERNAL EMAIL]
> >
> > On Tue 2021-01-12T14:34:52+0000 Koning, Paul hath writ:
> >> Is there any reason to believe that story is more than fiction?
> >
> >> "Why Scientists Want to Shorten the Minute to 59 Seconds"
> >>
> >>
> https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a35165130/leap-second-shorten-minute-earth-rotation/
> >
> > No, but it is a common fiction that has arisen because the content of
> > the negotiations that led to the inception of leap seconds was not
> > explained.
> >
> > At the time of inception no scientist believed that leap seconds were
> > the best way to regulate time.  The closest that they could come at
> > IAU was to assert that leap seconds were the "optimum solution" while
> > redacting all of the arguments and discussion indicating that the
> > problem that needed a solution was legal and political, not technical.
> >
> > --
> > Steve Allen                    <sla at ucolick.org>              WGS-84
> (GPS)
> > UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB 260  Natural Sciences II, Room 165  Lat
> +36.99855
> > 1156 High Street               Voice: +1 831 459 3046         Lng
> -122.06015
> > Santa Cruz, CA 95064           https://www.ucolick.org/~sla/  Hgt +250 m
>
> Yes.  The other point, though, is that leap seconds lengthen the day.  In
> theory we can have omitted seconds, in practice we have not had those.  The
> article speaks of the days getting shorter.  Is there any data that
> supports this assertion?
>
>         paul
>
>

-- 
Jonathan Leffler <jonathan.leffler at gmail.com>  #include <disclaimer.h>
Guardian of DBD::Informix - v2018.1031 - http://dbi.perl.org
"Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall never cease to be
amused."
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