Messages in this thread | | | From | (Alan Cox) | Subject | Re: Y2K | Date | Mon, 22 Jun 1998 15:55:54 +0100 (BST) |
| |
> > by the regulatory authorities (NIST in the USA)? I understand that > > the number of days in a year has been adjusted by convention, to be > > some number that is exactly represented. The result is adjusted to > > be, on the average, correct by use of the leap-second. > > There's a mistake in there somewhere. The leap second adjusts for > variations in the length of a day (ie the time it takes for the earth > to spin around its own axis). It cannot adjust for the length > of a year (ie the time it takes (in days!) to orbit the sun once).
Its also needed to keep a "year" the right number of fixed length seconds long. Leap seconds depend on the time system you use. In some time systems a second varies in length as a fraction of a day - where a day is defined as one rotation of the earth.
I'd suggest anyone who cares about this spends two weeks on comp.protocols.ntp
Alan
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
| |