F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work?

Tue Jul 3 21:50:38 UTC 2012

Peter Lothberg <roll at Stupi.SE> wrote:

> And I forgot: They made a "mistake" and missed their intentions of a
> solar day year 1900 when defining the atomic second. Off by 2s in 100
> years.

No that is not correct, or at least it's nowhere near as simple as that.
The atomic second was matched to the second of ephemeris time, and that
was based on Newcomb's tables of the sun, which in effect used the average
length of the second from the 1800s.
http://ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/dutc.html

Tony.
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