on 3/27/2002 1:04 PM, Ma Be at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (Regarding the definition of the second and the non-integral number of seconds in a day or in a year...) > The only problem is that we may not find a way to circumvent the fact that > there are 365.xx days in a year...
Nor can you circumvent the fact that there are not 24 hours in a day. The average day is a bit longer than 24 hours (currently) and it fluctuates regularly during the course of a year and irregularly over the span of many years (so in the future the day might be shorter than 24 hours, and not necessarily "average out"). The current extra length of the day ha required the adding of a leap second every few years. The length of the particular day when the leap second is added is 24:00:01 (hh:mm:ss). There is NO WAY that ANY time unit can be divised that is BOTH constant and, at the same time, a simple and FIXED FRACTION of the day or the year (or month, week, fortnight, etc.). It is impossible because NONE of the time intervals based on motions of the earth is constant.
