Experiment S87 Directory - (CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research) EXTRATERRANOVAS Research.

[email protected] Tue Apr 22 23:58:52 2003

Sliding through time. Message interception / Deslizamiento a traves del tiempo. Interceptación de mensaje / Glisser dans le temps. Interception de message / Скользит сквозь время. Перехват сообщений / 滑过时间。 消息拦截

This web page documents an e-mail message sent to the LEAPSECS mailing list on 2003-04-22. This paper argues the following:The current UTC standard will fail after more than 1000 years. Yet among human conventions that is a very robust scheme which deserves respect. Nevertheless, the ITU-R has been discussing abandoning leap seconds. The option of abandoning leap seconds fails in only 600 years. But the problems are not restricted to the far future. The POSIX standard for computer time and international legal systems are broken now. To see the underlying legal problem, and to watch any subsequent leap second happen on your computer (the one on 2008-12-31 was special for being the first leap second to happen legally in the US and Quebec). The deceleration since 1620 has been less, and that would push the calendar years farther into the future. If global warming causes the ice caps to melt then the deceleration will be somewhat larger. If melting ice caps shut down the Gulf Stream and cause a new ice age then the deceleration could be somewhat smaller. If a supervolcano erupts or asteroid strikes, all bets are off.