No More Leap Second? 295
WerewulfX writes "CNN reports: "In a phenomenon that has scientists puzzled, the Earth is right on schedule for a fifth straight year." Update yeah, this is a repost. Whatever- it's a holiday. Nothing else to post :)
Hah. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hah. (Score:2)
I should think about some present for my 18-year-old grandma soon..
As bad as being born on 30th Feb 1712 (Score:4, Interesting)
They eventually made the change from Julian in 1753 by having (gregorian) 1st Mar 1753 after (julian) 17 Feb 1753 removing ten days.
Makes a leap second seem a bit insignificant....
If you have no idea about Julian (as in Ceasar) and Gregorian (as in pope) calendars, have a look here [hermetic.ch]
I was born on Feb 30, 1969 (Score:2)
People react immediately at Feb 29 of whatever year and check if it's a leap year. Feb 30 just passes as another date.
Hell, I even have a library card using that fake ID. Even though it's been a long time since I used (or needed) the older identity, I still think it's kin
Nerds are not puzzled, however.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nerds are not puzzled, however.... (Score:1)
Re:Nerds are not puzzled, however.... (Score:2)
Re:Nerds are not puzzled, however.... (Score:2)
But what about... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But what about... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:But what about... (Score:3, Insightful)
Tricky shit, my friend. Tricky shit.
Re:But what about... (Score:2)
It's crazy though, for about a month I've had excellent karma, with only a small amount of very quick drops. This is despite not being able to use my karma bonus due to what seems to be an $rtbl.
LAME DUPES, EVEN WHEN TOLD IT WAS SO! (Score:1, Interesting)
This is a dupe. Not only that, I emailed about this being a dupe, 10 minutes before it went live.
TEN MINUTES!
Not only does Slashdot not even bother to correctly check for dupes, they don't even read their email that says "YOUR UPCOMING STORY IS A DUPE!".
Just what is the "email the editor if you see a problem with this story" link for, then, anyhow?
Just for the hell of it?
BAH!
Re:LAME DUPES, EVEN WHEN TOLD IT WAS SO! (Score:1, Informative)
What the hell is this crap? Redundant???
This isn't a normal "I was too lazy to properly check for dupes" situation.
No.
This is a situation where someone, who is supposed to be ON DUTY and who are supposed to READ their emails about potential problems with the story they just posted, neglecting their duty.
Honestly, the story is posted. They only have to pay attention for a total of 15 minutes until it goes live. Whomever it was, didn't.
I'm quite willing to bet that I wasn't the only person that pre-em
I AGREE!!! (Score:2)
Re:LAME DUPES, EVEN WHEN TOLD IT WAS SO! (Score:2)
20% Flamebait
20% Overrated
That sure is an interesting moderation score. What happened to the other 40%?
What if... (Score:5, Funny)
Mother Nature (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Mother Nature (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mother Nature (Score:2)
We can estimate how long a day was in the past based on current trends. But as this article shows, that may not be accurate. The article says the discovery of leap seconds is a side effect of the invention of the atomic clock in 1955. That means we've had not quite 50 years to observe trends. For the last 5 the trend has been different than in the past, and we have no clue why. That's over 10% of the sample data that breaks the trend, which isn't a small amount.
I'd sa
Re:Mother Nature (Score:2)
Re:Mother Nature (Score:2)
Hah! that's nothing, a Work Day was approximately 18 hours just 100 years ago.
Re:Mother Nature (Score:2)
Or is this just more uniformitarian assumptions masquerading as science?
Oh no, he was there... I saw him. He was a total ass back then... knocking out all the hot women and dragging them back to his cave without even killing them dinner first. And, sonney, you think your leap-seconds are bad these days? Well, in my day, on the way
Change in acceleration? (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:Change in acceleration? (Score:5, Funny)
I hope so! El Ninjo is the bad-assest Mexican Ninja ever!
Re:Change in acceleration? (Score:2, Funny)
Physics says it's possible. (Score:2)
So maybe all our Earth-based gravity assists for all the probes, shuttles, and satellites have collectively slowed the Earth down enough to = 1 second?
Late trains (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:Late trains (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Late trains (Score:2)
Re:Late trains (Score:2)
Re:Late trains (Score:2)
Ummh... the smallest adressable unit for an ARM-processors is a 16bit. I'd say it is quite common. Not on the desktop, but still.
Insanity! When will it end? (Score:1, Redundant)
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/1
Can someone please explain to me... (Score:3, Interesting)
I understand Atomic clocks and how they work - but I don't understand how scientists can deduce where the earth should be to the exact second and correct it as such.
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:2)
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:2)
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:2)
What if the telescope's foundation settles?
I'm thinking that one cannot take much for granted when measuring the position of the Earth to within one second of time.
Our continents are drifting. One would think that plate tectonics wouldn't have much of an effect, but again we are measuring the position that the earth is suppose to be in within one second of time. Wow! That can't be easy.
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:2)
20 miles is nothing when compaired to the distance in the Earth's orbit!
"Do two telescopes 20 miles apart have the same view of the heavens? No! They are more than a fifth of a degree off -- that's HUGE."
Your 1/5 of a degree number seems meaningless. It may be 1/5 of a degree from the Earths core to two points 20 miles apart on its surface but so what? We are trying to calculate the position the Earth is along it
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:2)
Ok.
01:42:32.682 : Star is currently.. up there... check.
Everything's ok over here.
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:2)
In a nutshell, astronomical observations.
OK OK, that isn't "exactly how they do it", but it should give you an idea of how they do it. Maybe someone else can provide more detail.
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:2)
It's actually very straightforward... 'where the Earth is supposed to be' is calculated assuming that the length of a day/year doesn't change, which isn't quite true.
Both measurement of time and of the Earth's position need to be accurate enough for this to be a problem... apparently they are.
How do we know.... (Score:2)
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:2, Funny)
He Schutze, He Scores!
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:2, Informative)
This is all about the earth spinning on its axis, 24 hours/revolution. As others mentioned, you can figure out quite precisely when the earth has made one revolution about its axis, by looking at a star.
The point is, slight variations in the earth's rotational speed on its axis mean that it doesn't take exactly 24 hrs 0 min 0.000 000 sec to turn once.
At the end of the year, they take all the va
M0-theory (Score:2)
The article suggests that it does... (Score:2)
"Orbit around the sun" doesn't sound like they are talking about rotation to me.
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:3, Informative)
tm_sec: The number of seconds after the minute, normally in the range 0 to 59, but can be up to 61 to allow for leap seconds.
So it would seem Linux, at least, has provisions for leap seconds. I think the same thing happens on UNIX as well, but I'm not somewhere where I can verify that right now.
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:2)
Maybe if you sync with an NTP server it can trigger it?
I hope they don't do it a lot though as calculating a date from a time_t would get increasingly inaccurate, unless very OS had a list of leap seconds and added them as needed (maybe they do?)
Damn, there goes my great idea. (Score:2, Funny)
What is wrong here? (Score:3, Funny)
last year (Score:4, Funny)
ummm, the moon? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:ummm, the moon? (Score:2)
With the moon in geosynchronous orbit around us, we would naturally not experience any more tides from the moon, but we would still have the (lesser) tides caused by the sun.
Babies (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Babies make grown-up Jesus lie. (Score:2)
Why people complain about it is beyond me. Duplication of effort is a tradition in the open source world! Plus, I've already wasted more than 30 earth-orbit-leap-seconds posting this.
Raid 1 story? (Score:2)
Re:Babies (Score:3, Interesting)
Did you notice this is the same kind of logic some spammers use when they try to convince others that spamming is harmless ? Something along the line of "It just takes a second to read, and if you don't like, just ignore it.".
Re:Babies (Score:2)
Anyway, it's annoying.
Re:Babies (Score:2)
Yeah but think of how many seconds of how many million geeks, wasted, i tell you WASTED! If any of the editors have the foresight to spend say 60 seconds checking, then the precious seconds of all the poor geeks in Asia and Africa will not be
lost, and to add ruthless insult to grieveous injury, even the cruel Earth has sought to deprived them of it since 1998. And I might add that if this continues, the terrorists would have already won. Spare a thought for the children.
Re:Babies (Score:2)
See, I could have just ignored you're post, but I chose to whine about it instead. It's quite a vicious circle you're a part of here.
AOL CDs (Score:3, Funny)
And all that energy to matter conversion has increased the mass of the Earth. Which has increased its gravatational field, and the effects of everything elses field on it. Thus the earth is moving faster.
Or possibly space dust.
Re:40l cd5 (Score:2, Interesting)
I personally expected them to give up on their CDs a while ago, but there's no accounting for marketing...
not today, how about next June? (Score:2)
Rotational Kinetic Energy II (Score:5, Interesting)
If the Earth is assumed to be a homogeneous sphere and the rotational axis is assumed to be the straight line passing through the north and south geographic poles, the moment of inertia of the Earth is I = MR^2 where M is the total mass of the Earth and R is its radius. The kinetic energy of a rotating Earth is given by K = 1/2 I w^2, where w is the angular velocity.
The energy associated with an angular velocity which is increased by 1 second over a year is equivalent to an extra 1.6e22 Joules of energy or 40 times the annual energy consumption of mankind (DoE 1999). A detailed analysis and matlab script are available here [michael-forman.com]
Yeah, this is a rereply. Whatever. It's a holiday. Nothing else to reply to.
Michael. [michael-forman.com]
Re:Rotational Kinetic Energy II (Score:3, Insightful)
With global warming, won't the radius increase, affecting this calculation?
Regards,
--
*Art
Re:Rotational Kinetic Energy II (Score:2)
Re:Rotational Kinetic Energy II (Score:2)
The increase in the radius of the atmosphere is proportional to the increase in absolute temperature. At 0K, there's no atmosphere at all. I wouldn't be surprised if a few degrees C overall temperature increase would have a measurable effect on the radius of the planet.
Regards,
--
*Art
Re:Rotational Kinetic Energy II (Score:2)
Oops. I have the correct constant in my matlab script [michael-forman.com] and supporting analysis [michael-forman.com] but dropeed it when I wrote my slashdot post.
The kinetic energy and ratio in the post are correct.
I'm always in such a hurry to make my slashdot post, in order to try score a better mod. *sigh*
Thanks,
Michael. [michael-forman.com]
Posts (Score:5, Funny)
Sure there is. You could post about how the Stardust probe is about to enter a comet's tail, or perhaps India's plans for a hypersonic plane, or even the chnaging face of offshore programming...
Re:Posts (Score:2)
Heh (Score:2)
Most of the dupes are Taco's. For him to take your suggestions would require Taco to actually read his own website... which he's never shown any evidence of doing.
Call Agent Smith! (Score:2, Funny)
Less mass (Score:3, Funny)
I mean NASA did actually get that done right?
Earth speeds up: anti-leap second! (Score:5, Insightful)
For 28 years, scientists repeated the procedure [of adding a leap second]. But in 1999, they discovered the Earth was no longer lagging behind.
Um, not exactly true. Not every year over the last 28 years has had a leap second. For example, 1984, 1986 and 1987 didn't have a leap second. It's generally determined if a leap second is necessary about 6 months ahead of time by IERS [iers.org]. However, this is the first 5 year gap of no leap seconds.
It's interesting to note that the "leap second protocol" permits a "reverse" leap second - meaning a "short" minute. This is because the folks involved in defining the leap second realized that the rotation of the earth is not 100% predictable, and therefore they theorized that there could be a "fast spinning year" that would merit the loss of a second. This hasn't happened yet.
This whole rotation-of-earth-isn't-constant idea is pretty new (50 years). So just because we have a 5 year period of smaller rotaional speed deltas isn't totally unexpected.
Re:Earth speeds up: anti-leap second! (Score:2)
Maybe this means that we could undo the release of the latest William Shatner album.
The "smith" article. (Score:3, Funny)
My new year's prediction: this article, having found a niche, will be continually resubmitted by clueless slashdot readers, reposted, and picked up by automated news services in a never-ending cycle of google-reader-slashdot that will ultimately threaten the very fabric of the internet itself!!
Hey. It's as plausible of any other prediction I've read today...
Re:The "smith" article. (Score:2)
What is the very fabric of the internet? I'm thinking mostly polyester, maybe a cotton polyester blend. Perhaps 90/10.
mmm this beer is good...hey, did I hit submit? no, damn...mm this beer is good..
And the confusion continues... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Where earth actually is in space"?
As HopeOS said when the previous article was posted:
"Leap seconds, as pointed out, are an entirely different beast, and are meant to shore up the discrepency between our actual rotation and the atomic clocks we use."
That's why. This has nothing to do with rotations around our sun, just around our own axis.
At the National Institute for Science and Technology in Boulder, spokesman Fred McGehan said most scientists agree the Earth's orbit around the sun has been gradually slowing for millennia.
Assuming this is true and this is the actual news here, the reporter (and the writer of the other article) shouldn't have started talking about leap seconds in the first place since these aren't added to compensate for that.
Re:And the confusion continues... (Score:2)
As noone got it right in the earlier article (Score:5, Informative)
Particularly, the monsoon season I believe has the largest effect, particularly because the generated winds impact the himalayan mountains.
The combination of a large (albeit distributed) force impacting a large object (himalayas) affects the angular velocity of the earth.
I learned this first because a friend was writing an ephermeris program and got in contact with the guy an NIST who tracks these things. I beleive they can make some predictions of change in rotational velocity based on the force of observed storms.
Also the Navy has built an array of (radio or laser, I forget) interferrometers located in (I believe) the rocky mountains which are used to measure the actual variances against star positions.
The real reason the earth is slowing down (Score:2)
[cnn.com]
Re:As no one got it right in the earlier article (Score:2)
Yes, you can change rotational velocity in a closed system:
Repeat as needed to accelerate rotational velocity. The effect is more pronounced if done while holding
Re:As no one got it right in the earlier article (Score:2)
Well it's called bootstrapping for a reason ;-) And yes this amounts to someone's job but its more useful (necessary) than your post suggests.
Anyhow no, this is not bogus, here roughly was my friend's conversation with the guy at NIST:
Engineer How do you calculate spatial position (exactly)?
NIST Obviously first we know precession and nutation, these are easily predictable.
Engineer So that's exact, the whole story?
NIST No, there are some additional varriations.
Engineer What are
Sorry but wrong again. (Score:2)
I've now read a few of your other posts and seen that you have a bit of mistrust of government spending, not a bad thing in and of itself. However in this case as in many others the assumption that something is unwarranted leads to erroneous conclusions.
I'm reminded of the US Senator who used to hand out the 'Golden Fleece'
And this reply (Score:2)
Yeah. It's the new-year.
Nothing new to reply.
Maybe it's due to the ... (Score:2)
Re:You know what that means??? (Score:1)
Re:You know what that means??? (Score:1)
Re:You know what that means??? (Score:2)
Re:WTF? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:WTF? (Score:2)
Don't bother suggesting improvements (Score:4, Insightful)
Taco really abhors change that isn't his. Especially if it's something that's already implemented elsewhere (i.e., Kuro5hin), they'll claim it "doesn't scale well."
Slashdot is behind the times. Its userbase has become a joke of groupthink and trolls, and the editors don't even read their links or posted stories anymore. It still has the momentum of a large fanbase, however, which just increases the stupidity because we have all these mistakes happening in front of a huge readership.
Re:Don't bother suggesting improvements (Score:2)
Somehow, use of the word, "cocksuckers" in a sig leads me to discredit the original text of the author.
Re:Don't bother suggesting improvements (Score:2)
Now, there are some things that could be improved on SlashDot, and we all know that. But basically it's still the most popular and the userbase is too diverse for anyone to really do much. First thing I would change is the moderation choices. Other than Interesting or Insightful there is no other reasonable option. Scaling is a problem though, they already have to handle huge load on their
Re:sun has changed? (Score:2, Informative)
> isn't constant over time,
> try to explain this?
I am a PhD student in mathematical physics, but I'm afraid I don't have a complete answer for you.
Technically the Sun's mass is decreasing due to solar wind, neutrinos and light (light doesn't have rest mass, but it still carries away energy). However, the change caused by this is so minuscule you can neglect it for the purpose of Earth's orbit. The difference will not be measur
Re:sun has changed? (Score:2)
Plus of course the sun us a huge fusion reaction which is burning fuel and giving off energy.. which must have some effect.
I'm not sure how much effect that would have on the orbit though.
Re:sun has changed? (Score:2)
Is there another kind of physics? A kind
that doesn't use all that pesky math?
Re:Which one is "wrong"? (Score:2)
If you accept that every cesium atom is
Re:interesting (Score:2)