What would it take to eliminate leap years?

[Richard R Richard]

Start investing in heavy Earth moving equipment.

So that there are no leap years, we need
• Make the period of rotation of the Earth about its own axis proportional to the period of translation around the sun, how? Well there will be a thousand more or less funny occurrences, or some physically feasible formulation, and of them there will be only a few that achieve it without destroying the terrestrial ecosystem.
• On the other hand, we must make these two periods proportional to our definition of the second, to measure time.
So everything would be expressed in whole numbers .. We put a new number on the starting day, at the start time, and from there onwards, a masterpiece of precision and human intelligence ... but ... to what end? would be the utility?

 

[Baluncore]

except that the standard numerical algorithm does not match your incorrect description, unless you can explain otherwise.

If (y Mod 4 ) ≠ 0 Then Return 'common' Exit.
If (y Mod 100 ) ≠ 0 Then Return 'leap' Exit.
If (y Mod 400 ) ≠ 0 Then Return 'common' Exit.
Return 'leap' Exit. This is the one exception every 400 years.

 

[Helios]

"This is the one exception every 400 years."
I still count 3 exceptions to the Julian calendar every 400 years. Count them.
You haven't explained the "reference calendar" and why I would be wishing to change it. What did that mean?

 

[mfb]

I propose to stop the discussion whether it's one, two or three exceptions in the calendar. It's entirely subjective and further discussion won't help anyone.

@Richard R Richard: We already have leap seconds once in a while because the length of the day is not exactly 86400 seconds. Making days longer to have 365 days in a year would need ~15 leap seconds every day.
To avoid leap seconds we would need to speed up the rotation of Earth a bit. To avoid leap years at the same time we would need to get Earth closer to the Sun. Or maybe farther away is a better idea (366 or more days per year), looking at recent climate developments.

 

[Richard R Richard]

@Richard R Richard: We already have leap seconds once in a while because the length of the day is not exactly 86400 seconds. Making days longer to have 365 days in a year would need ~15 leap seconds every day.
To avoid leap seconds we would need to speed up the rotation of Earth a bit. To avoid leap years at the same time we would need to get Earth closer to the Sun. Or maybe farther away is a better idea (366 or more days per year), looking at recent climate developments.

I agree with what you say, but matching the angular velocities of rotation and translation at the same point year after year does not guarantee that it will be a whole number of seconds.
This can be achieved with many pairs of speeds, but there will only be a few pairs where the number of seconds is proportional to the current definition of a second.
But there will only be two pairs that have either 365 or 366 days, the periods must be those numbers multiplied exactly by 86400 if we want the hour system to remain unchanged.
The eccentricity of the orbit with respect to the sun will give us shorter or longer days during the year, and there will be no solution unless we also put that in our work, that is, we achieve at the same time that the orbit around the sun is circular and that the orbit of the moon with respect to the Earth is circular with a period also proportional to the definition of the year, only then will the moon, which moves us ahead and behind us in the solar orbit, will allow us to have an exact definition of the time of the day. just looking at distant stars.

 

[jbriggs444]

I agree with what you say, but matching the angular velocities of rotation and translation at the same point year after year does not guarantee that it will be a whole number of seconds.

Fixing the day length at an integer number of seconds can be done with the stroke of a pen.

 

[Richard R Richard]

Fixing the day length at an integer number of seconds can be done with the stroke of a pen.

Did I let you see that it is not so?
First you have to establish with what scale value the time will be measured, in seconds for example $\dfrac{299792458m}{c}$, then we define how many seconds are necessary for a translation from the Earth to the sun, 31536000s or 31622400s with this you calculate the radius and the speed of the circular orbit of the Earth Moon system, you adjust the period of rotation of the Earth for 365d or 366d days as appropriate, you move the Moon to a closer circular orbit, let's say 13 revolutions a year and voila ... the way it is achieved must be very creative so that the process does not exterminate us as a species ...
Greetings

 

[jbriggs444]

Did I let you see that it is not so?

Speak plainly, please.

 

[Richard R Richard]

Speak plainly, please.

Sorry, I would like not to depend on an electronic language translator, who will provide you with the exact words so that what I want to explain is understood.
Could you tell me what is not understood from what I write, Thank you.

 

[jbriggs444]

Sorry, I would like not to depend on an electronic language translator, who will provide you with the exact words so that what I want to explain is understood.

The sentence suggests to me that English is not your native language and that you use an electronic language translator to post.

Spoken plainly that could have been written:

"I use an electronic language translator to post".

There is nothing wrong with that. I bear you no ill will. I accept that language problems may exist. I will try to be clear. I will try to use short declarative sentences. I may fail.

You had written:

Did I let you see that it is not so?

From this I cannot determine whether
1. You agree.
2. You disagree.
3. Something else.

Your sentence above is a question, not an assertion. It is a question about the negation of an assertion. [It is actually a bit worse than that, asking about willful interference with a state of knowledge].

Assertions are plain
Questions are less plain
Questions about negated assertions are less plain than that.

The sentence also contains a pronoun, "it" which lacks an antecedent. I do not know what "it" you are referring to.

You went on to write a passage which has no obvious relationship to what I had written:

First you have to establish with what scale value the time will be measured, in seconds for example 299792458 / c, then we define how many seconds are necessary for a translation from the Earth to the sun, 31536000 or 31622400 with this you calculate the radius and the speed of the circular orbit of the Earth Moon system, you adjust the period of rotation of the Earth for 365 or 366 days as appropriate, you move the Moon to a closer circular orbit, let's say 13 revolutions a year and voila ... the way it is achieved must be very creative so that the process does not exterminate us as a species ...

First, you need to describe what you are trying to accomplish.

It appears that the selected task is to arrange matters so that the year is an integer number of months, the month is an integer number of days and the day is an integer number of seconds.

As a first step toward this, you claimed a need to define the second according to some arbitrary external standard. Specifically, "299792458 / c". [Be careful. Units matter].

I disagree. I had tried to point out that this is a waste of a definition. But I had failed to speak plainly. I had written:

Fixing the day length at an integer number of seconds can be done with the stroke of a pen.

Let me put that more plainly:

We can redefine the second as 1/86400 of a day. Then the day is an integer number of seconds. This requires no massive engineering effort. It requires only things written on paper with pencil.

 

[Baluncore]

"This is the one exception every 400 years."
I still count 3 exceptions to the Julian calendar every 400 years. Count them.
You haven't explained the "reference calendar" and why I would be wishing to change it. What did that mean?

I am not comparing anything to the Julian Calendar as a reference, that is your false assumption. You simply decided that because you are right I must be wrong.

I clearly specified the “one” exception. You are claiming I am wrong because I should have written “three” exceptions. But really I meant the one, not the three. You should have noticed that I did not specify the polarity, nor which rule or clause was being excepted. I simply described it as the "1 in 400 year exception" because that is sufficient to specify the accuracy of the approximation.

When a rule is applied to “four events with one exception”, it would be crazy to describe it backwards as “four events with three exceptions”.

 

[Halc]

Which is easier? Moving the moon or building a trillion dams?

One dam will do. Just build it (the reservoir in particular) upon a sufficiently tall tower. Problem solved.
Have to put a roof on it to keep the water from boiling away. But this seems easier than the two options above, and it doesn't run into the real-estate problem.

 

[Richard R Richard]

I will try to be clear. I will try to use short declarative sentences. I may fail.

Ok. Thank you

You had written:
From this I cannot determine whether
1. You agree.
2. You disagree.
3. Something else.

I agree,
You can choose the exact number of seconds that a year lasts, writing it on a piece of paper and then making a series of calculations, for a hypothetical work and engineering, that transforms our environment to a proportional one, to the current definition of second.

First, you need to describe what you are trying to accomplish.

I think there would be a certain debatable order, to achieve that a year has exactly the duration proportional to a whole number of seconds and a whole number of revolutions of the earth.

1. define a way to measure time.
2. define the duration of the year, in seconds, that defines a single circular orbit, with a single radius and velocity of the CM of the earth-moon system.
3. adjust the rotation period so that it is a whole number, whichever you prefer exactly 365 or 366 in a year.
4. make the moon rotate circularly a whole number of times around the Earth in the period of one year so that the CM of the system is located exactly in the same position at the same time in the next revolution with the same relative position of the Earth and the moon.

As a first step toward this, you claimed a need to define the second according to some arbitrary external standard. Specifically, "299792458 / c". [Be careful. Units matter].

I already fixed it.Please tell me if I can explain it better now.
This thread is a mental exercise with many possible creative solutions.
Regards

 

[jbriggs444]

1. define a way to measure time.
2. define the duration of the year, in seconds, that defines a single circular orbit, with a single radius and velocity of the CM of the earth-moon system.
3. adjust the rotation period so that it is a whole number, whichever you prefer exactly 365 or 366 in a year.
4. make the moon rotate circularly a whole number of times around the Earth in the period of one year so that the CM of the system is located exactly in the same position at the same time in the next revolution with the same relative position of the Earth and the moon.

We already have clocks. We can already measure time. None of the above steps actually depend on the second being defined in any particular way. Or at all.

We can arrange for the earth-moon CM to have a circular orbit without defining the second.
We can arrange for the moon to make 13 orbits per year without defining the second.
We can arrange for the Earth to make 366 rotations per year without defining the second.
We can then, if we choose, define the second as 1/86400 of the solar day.

The first three are massive engineering challenges. The last one is trivial.

 

[Richard R Richard]

We already have clocks. We can already measure time. None of the above steps actually depend on the second being defined in any particular way. Or at all.

I disagree. You can match a multiple of the period of rotation of the Earth on its own axis with the period of translation of the earth, but this period does not necessarily result in an integer number of seconds, if the scale with the second as we currently define it is preserved. .
The 22 hundredths of a second in 365d5h 48 '45.22s, which is the current average period of a tropical year, makes it not an integer measure of seconds, so if it is required that there be no deviation in the future with respect to integer values of a second , the period of revolution will be required to be an integer multiple of that unit, therefore you must previously define it, after that choose the duration of a year in seconds as you prefer and the number of days you want of days within that year dividing by 86400, if you prefer that a day lasts similar to what it lasts today, which should give you an integer as well, so you can define the rest of the variables, orbital radius, rotation speed, angular speed, number of revolutions of the moon, I guess 13 to minimize energy expenditure in moving it… .etc…

 

[cmb]

Much as the topic might draw some interesting detail out (seems to have ended now, though?), of course it is better to be 'slightly off' than trying to perfectly align time, even if we could do it. The Earth is slowing down as it pushes its tides against the Moon's gravity, so whatever you do today will change again in a few hundred years, never be exact. And that's not looking at the natural orbital cycles.

So it'll always be a case of 'fewer' leap seconds/days, than eliminating them.

 

[Richard R Richard]

If it were already a fact that we could move the moon, change the orbit of the Earth with respect to the sun and slow down the rotation of the earth, why should not we rearrange everything again every time the first difference of a second arises in any of the periods, whatever the cause, tides, earthquakes,… .etc, we could even predict how often that may happen.

 

[gary350]

You can not eliminate leap year unless each day is about .98634 minutes longer. Soon 12 midnight by the CLOCK will be a 1am then 2am then 3am & so on until 4 years later 12midnight will be back to 12 midnight again. Every day you need to go to work about .98634 minutes later. You need to remember to go to work or school at a different time every day. How crazy is that.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Every day you need to go to work about .98634 minutes later.

I was amused to learn that staff on the Mars project were working Mars time so they could work 'in the light'.