13 Nov 2005
Timekeeping proposal sparks row

What's all this, then? Not content with the arbitrary rescheduling that is Daylight Savings Time, some of the commercial guardians of the clock seems Hel-bent to decouple it completely from any natural phenomena. If this is their real goal, why not just redesign clocks to be totally arbitrary - and go to a ten hour day with 100 minutes per hour of 100 seconds each.

Such systems have been proposed - see the Decimal Time Homepage.

Of course, such systems still need leap seconds to stay in coordination with the Earth: otherwise astronomers, farmers and others who depend on Nature for their work or observations will get totally screwed up. But who needs those guys anyhow? All they do is discover the nature of the Universe and feed the planet! Where's the money in that?

A proposal to abolish leap seconds - occasional adjustments made to clock time, angers UK scientists.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

Update: Here's a link to an opinion piece in the New York Times on the same topic.

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