way OT: Leap second....

DENNIS MIN · Jun 11, 2015

All,

I learned a few things over time (pun intended). I haven't ever heard of a leap second?! That is until a few days ago, and be assured, it's real.

I was flabbergasted. Read up on it, kind of dependent on the accuracy of an atomic clock, and the rotational slowdown of Earth.

All the humans smarts in the world could not "design" the details in which we live.

D.

rrlund · Jun 12, 2015

That's why all of this brainy talk about "time" by geniuses like Steven Hawking drive me bonkers. Time is just something invented by man as a unit of measure. Leap year,leap second,it's all just a way to correct man's mistakes.

TomH in PA · Jun 12, 2015

The problem is that the Earth's orbit around the Sun and rotation on its axis aren't perfectly divisible by an even number of days. So occasionally we need to adjust the calendar and clock; without that adjustment we would eventually end up with January 1st in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere's summer. The fact that they were able to get so close to the correct adjustment back in 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar is pretty remarkable.

Of course the reason we have twelve months goes back even farther to (I think) the ancient Egyptians who tied it to the signs of the Zodiac. Ever wonder why Moses told his followers to stop worshiping the Golden Calf, or why that little drawing of a fish is the symbol of Christianity? It has to do with the Zodiac - Taurus the Bull and Pisces the Fish. Of course now we're in the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

Steve@Advance · Jun 12, 2015

"All the humans smarts in the world could not "design" the details in which we live."

Ain't that the truth! We can't even fathom the the necessities that make life on Earth possible. I was reading about a theory of a collision of a giant iron base asteroid with Earth back in the formation of the solar system... If that collision had not occurred, there would not be the magnetic field that protects us from radiation. Earth is the only known planet with such a magnetic field. Coincidence?

way OT: Leap second....

DENNIS MIN

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rrlund

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TomH in PA

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Steve@Advance

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