We at CR4 are extremely privileged to present "The Perfect Day", by Professor Abraham Michelen. The article describes the controversy over the proposed abolition of the leap second. Should you wish to have CR4 publish a paper of yours, see the note at the end of this work.
The Perfect Day
Abraham Michelen
December 2005
Recently, the Bush administration made a secret and unusual request to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a dependency of the United Nations. The request consists of making every day last exactly 24 hours – no less, no more. The U.S. government wants this to take place in 2007. The idea is favored by business people, but keeps astronomers, the British (maybe also the French), and general physicists awake at night. Most probably, Kepler and Galileo are revolving in their tombs. The reason for the Bush administration's request is that because of the moon's gravity and other phenomena (Sumatra earthquake, the tsunami last year?), the earth has been moving slower (or faster) around its axis. Consequently, a full earth rotation takes more (or less) than 24 hours. The difference is a very small amount of time, but every certain number of years, the cumulative total reaches one second. This amount is known as the leap second. At this point, the organization responsible for global timekeeping, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, asks institutions, governments, telecommunication industries, satellite operators, and any other organizations that require exact synchronization of time to add (or subtract) an extra second to or from all clocks. This keeps the world's time synchronized. The first leap second was added in June 30, 1972. The last leap second added was in 1998. The next additon will take place on December 31 of this year (2005), when the last minute of the year will last 61 seconds. To accomplish this task, the world's atomic clocks will be programmed to produce this unusual minute. If the Bush administration request is not successful, we will have to repeat the same "tradition" some seven years from now.
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The big problem with performing this task is not the programming of the atomic clocks every seven years. The big hassle is for computers that use software programs that never allowed for a 61-second minute. This produces glitches when the extra second is inserted. This problem is particularly severe for companies that manufacture ultra-precise clocks for the telecommunication industry (such as Symmetricom, Inc.). Some examples: the addition of a leap second in 1997 made computers at Associated Press Radio crash and start broadcasting the wrong taped programs; in 1998, the Russian global positioning system (a.k.a. Glonass) became inoperable for more than 20 hours when it was programmed to add the leap second; in 2003, GPS receivers from Motorola, Inc. showed customers the wrong time when programmed to add the extra second. If programmers ignore the need to add the leap second, it may present a risk to air travel because a glitch might shut down air traffic control systems, thus putting human lives at risk.
Because of these types of problems, which mainly affect the lucrative world telecommunication industry, and because any problem of this type can cost this industry many million of dollars, the U.S. government last year quietly proposed to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) the total abolition of the leap second. Formal astronomers and scientists fear that eliminating the leap second will make traditional time keeping devices such as sextants and sundials inaccurate and obsolete; however, supporters responds that GPS systems can provide the exact longitude and latitude to anyone with a receiver. Nobody, they say, navigates with the stars any longer.
This U.S. proposal has upset the scientific community such as astronomers, time keepers, the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, and others. The Earth Rotation Services leap second chief, Monsieur Daniel Gambis, of the Paris Observatory is particularly angry. He thinks, as do the majority of his peers, that time should follow the Earth rotation, and that the secret American proposal is a coup de force (power play), and a blatant political intrusion on scientific standards. Setting aside the interference in hundreds of years of scientific achievements by people like Newton and Galileo, if the proposal is accepted, he argues, it would require changes to our observatories and telescopes that will cost million of dollars. Our fancy telescopes make use of the exact time and the Earth's position when they point to a specific star.
This U.S. proposal to abolish the leap second is strongly opposed by Britain, too. From 1884 to 1961 (when atomic clocks were introduced) the whole world set its official clocks to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). GMT is bases on the actual movement of stars as seen from the Royal Observatory outside London. When the world moved to adopt the actual Coordinated Universal Time (CUT), which uses extremely precise atomic clocks, it was necessary to add the leap second to the GMT standard. The British are so proud of GMT that the Parliament never accepted the CUT (even though the BBC and the Big Ben clock in Parliament square follow the CUT). GMT is the pride of Britain, and abolishing the leap second (which means making the Royal Observatory irrelevant) will cause some of the British to cry.
Still, there are some more serious matters to consider. For example, terminating the leap second will cause the sun to rise (by the clock) later every year. After 500 to 600 years, it is estimated, we will need to add a "leap hour" to compensate (it is expected that the Earth rotation will slow even further), as proposed by the U.S. Government. (Failing do this, children will be going to school at three in the afternoon!). This may not be a big problem, however, because we do something similar every year when we switch to daylight-saving time.
The U.S. government argues that it is better to proceed with the proposal and have it ready by 2007, even if we have to spend money upgrading our telescopes and other devices, rather than risk an accident because of a computer glitch. The astronomers, however, are not convinced. Dr. Steve Allen (google his web site!), a great astronomer from the University of California, is a staunch opponent of abolishing the leap second. "If your navigation system causes two planes to cash because of a one second error, you have worse problems than leap seconds", he says.
This controversy is more about philosophy than costs or convenience. Astronomers do not accept that the convenience of inefficient computer programmers should triumph over the rising of the sun. On the other hand, for a U.S. government that is worried more about safety than astronomy, it is important to eliminate the leap second. Dr. Allen is reluctant. "Time has basically always really meant what you measure when you put a stick in the ground and look at its shallow", he says.
I would like to hear from all of the readers of this forum. What are your thoughts about this matter? We know that we can eliminate the leap second just by legislation, but should we? On the other hand, it is not difficult to teach our computers that a certain minute every seven years lasts 61 seconds and not 60. In this way, we could keep the legacy of our scientists and, at the same time, be faithful to nature.
What do you think?
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Time Constant
