Hacker News Reader

Now, I'm not a proponent of leap seconds. But I'm a bit curious to where the 7.389 m comes from?

The earth rotates about 12 km along the equator in 26 s.

Is the error of ~7 m for determining your position north-south wise? East-west it should be about 12 km then I think.

I exaggerated, latitude can be determined without a clock from celestial objects. Longitude requires both a synchronized clock and an equation of time (because noon GMT varies). [1] The equation of time is published. Rather than adjusting all the clocks in the world, the equations could be modified to account for additional variation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equation_of_time

I'm not sure that this answers the question. Where did the ~7m answer come from, if the Earth rotates 12km in 26s?

I over estimated the effect of an absolute clock shift upon celestial navigation. The actual number is 0 meters because the absolute clock shift affects both the reference clock and the referencing clock equally when determining longitude.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com