Re: NO positive leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2006

JRS: In article <vvidnYXj2dHnFF_ZnZ2dnUVZ_qSdnZ2d@xxxxxxx>, dated Sat,
22 Jul 2006 16:24:24 remote, seen in news:sci.astro.amateur, Richard
F.L.R.Snashall <rflrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> posted :
Dr John Stockton wrote:

We know the length of a year, suitably defined, to something like five
or six decimal places of mean solar days.

If true, I suppose it would be futile to ask the Wiki authors to give
some kind of indication when they say 365.27218967, anyway.

That's nowhere near 365.2425, which is the Gregorian figure.

And 365.27218967 has 11 figures. A Leap Second per year would be about
1 in 31,500,000, which has 8 figures. The constancy of the rate of leap
seconds is certainly worse than 99.9%, so although Wiki's apparent
accuracy might be justifiable for the length of a given past year, or
the average over a given interval, it is not applicable to defining a
calendar for the future (given that variation in days/year is due
predominantly to variation in day-length not year-length).

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