Ashley Yakeley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'd like to see an elastic "civil second" to which SI nanoseconds are > added or removed.
Ditto! I have always been in favor of rubber seconds, and specifically civil second. I believe that the *CIVIL* second should have its own definition completely and totally independent of the SI second. Civil time independent of physical time would solve all problems. The scale of civil time should be defined as a continuous real number scale of *angle*, not physical time. It would solve the problem of needing to measure time intervals while at the same time synchronising with the civil calendar. Civil time interval is defined as the clock on the Kremlin tower turning by a given angle. Define one second of civil time as the hour hand turning by 30 seconds of arc. The people who complain about leap seconds screwing up their interval time computations are usually told to use TAI. They retort that they need interval time *between civil timestamps*. To me that seems like what they are really measuring as "interval time" is not physical interval time, but how much time has elapsed *in civil society*. Hence my idea of civil interval time that's completely decoupled from physical time and is instead defined as the turning angle of the clock on the Kremlin tower. <Flame deflector up> MS
