Leap Seconds need to be abolished. The only people who need it are Astronomers. They could just use an offset. Implementing leap seconds correctly is a huge burden, for no gain.
Where I live, high noon today occurs at 1:03 PM. No one is complaining that it is 3 minutes (or 63 minutes) off. It's a non-issue for 99.9% of the population.
Unless you want to abolish timezones entirely, which would simplify clocks but complicate a whole lot else in society, you're going to need leap-something. Would leap minutes or hours really be much better? The idea that doing things less often causes more problems is a reasonable one.
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Hmm. I understand that perspective, but I'm not sure I agree. It does seem to matter over a relatively short & realistic time scale. According to the Wikipedia page, there have been 27 seconds added since 1972, which is only 44 years ago. At that rate, that's about 1 minute per 100 years. We have many systems that have existed for several centuries and I think it's not unreasonable to start making plans for systems that may exist for millennia, where you're starting to talk about a 10+ minute offset at the current rate.
But I do think there is a valid argument that the infrequency of these events cause more issues than maybe one large adjustment 500 years from now would cause. Not sure where I land on this one.
> since 1972, which is only 44 years ago
Thanks for making me a decade younger :)
The problem is that Earth's rotation isn't consistently faster. Some years leap seconds need to be added, some years they need to be removed. Would be far better to leave them alone, let them average out, and as the GP said let the people who care about this add the offset they need.
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Can you explain how a 10 minute offset would affect you in any way?
For 99% of the world today, high noon =/= 12:00:00. Nothing breaks because of this. The world continues to run.
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You make a good argument for the opposite of your conclusion. If you’re planning a system that’s supposed to last for millennia, that system shouldn’t depend on the fiat of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service.
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> The only people who need it are Astronomers.
And anyone that cares about the relationship of the time of day and the position of the Sun.
Granted, it's not a lot, only a minute per century.
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I mean, in 53 years we have added 27 leap seconds, so in 119 years you'll have to set your alarm a minute earlier if you still want to arrive on time.