On Fri, Nov 15, 2024 at 11:45 AM Jon Brase via Freedos-user <freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: [..] > > If Earth's accumulated rotation angle is ever non-monotonic, we'll > have bigger and more thermally significant problems than timekeeping.
You might be surprised to learn the Earth's rotational speed actually *does* change, it is not constant: https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/leap-seconds-faqs#:~:text=Leap%20seconds%20are%20added%20in,to%20less%20than%200.9%20seconds. > Leap seconds are added in order to keep the difference between UTC and > astronomical time (UT1) to less than 0.9 seconds. The International Earth > Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS), measures Earth's rotation > and publishes the difference between UT1 and UTC. Usually leap seconds > are added when UTC is ahead of UT1 by 0.4 seconds or more. At the time > the corrections started in 1972, a necessary correction of ten seconds > was made to UTC, and there have been leap seconds about every year and > a half (on average). The current difference between UTC and UT1 is shown > in our leap second archive web page. _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
