[tz] New Yorker article on David Mills and NTP

[Paul Eggert]

On 10/4/22 13:15, Michael H Deckers via tz wrote:
>     in Paris will vote on the proposal D on pages 7..8 and 23..24 in

For those who haven't seen it, this proposal would abolish leap seconds. 
Although it officially proposes only that we not worry about |UT1-UTC| 
for at least 100 years (i.e., that we kick the can down the road to our 
great-great-great-grandchildren), our descendants will almost surely 
kick the can down the road to *their* descendants, which means leap 
seconds will be abolished indefinitely.

Although this obviously won't work in the long term, leap seconds 
wouldn't work either because days will become too long for them too.

Predicting length of day (LOD) is a tricky business with no real 
consensus. That being said, Tyler predicted that for the next 3 billion 
years LOD will increase roughly linearly, to 30 hours. So assuming our 
timekeeping civilization lasts long enough, eventually we'll need 
something, even if it's not leap seconds.

--
Tyler RH. On the tidal history and future of the Earth–Moon orbital 
system. Planet Sci J. 2021;2(2):70. https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/abe53f