Re: [Lynx-dev] the sun, the sun

[David Woolley]

On 08/08/2020 23:29, Halaasz Saandor via Lynx-dev wrote:
> I suspect that it is time to detach the physical second, that physicists 
> use, from the second that is one 86400th of a day, and find a definition 
> of "day" that depends on our experience of sunlight. The last definition 
> that I found makes a day 86400 seconds.

I can't find the original for this thread, but days are not 86400 
seconds, which are currently defined in terms of a quantum transition 
frequency.  The actual length of a day is less stable than this. Leap 
seconds are introduced into UTC to correct for this.

(Also, a solar day is not constant throughout the year, because the 
earth's orbit round the sun is elliptical.)