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From: karn@petrus.UUCP (Phil R. Karn)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Leap seconds
Message-ID: <462@petrus.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 10-Aug-85 17:34:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: petrus.462
Posted: Sat Aug 10 17:34:34 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Aug-85 06:16:45 EDT
References: <2884@mordor.UUCP> <287@ubvax.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Inc
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It is true that the earth exhibits fluctuations in its rotation phase due
to, among other things, seasonal atmospheric mass shifts, etc.  However, I
think leap seconds are needed mainly because the standard atomic second was
defined to be a little too short compared to the second based on the average
rotation rate of the earth. That's why we almost always seem to have extra
leap (60th) seconds in UTC instead of missing 59th seconds.

Phil