>There wasn't a day to jump ahead. The progression of the 'day' was stopped
>also.
If the earth had stopped rotating for one day, and the ancient astronomers
had failed to note that that day was unusually long, then if they had
astronomical tables accurate enough to show the day-by-day motion of, say,
Mars, or if they kept track accurately enough of where the sun rose and set
in terms of its position in the constellations, then there would be a
one-day jump, in the sense that they would have noted that when the sun set
that day it set where it should have set one day later. Of course if they
had timekeeping instruments they could also have noticed that the day was
really a day and a half, so there was no jump. But a table simply giving
the location of sunset/sunrise in the heavens that didn't note the extra
length of the day would appear to show a jump.
Whether the ancient astronomers could measure the position of the sun in
the heavens that accurately I don't know. If they could, they almost
certainly could also note that a particular day was unusually long. In any
case this is a discussion about what could have been done if certain
capabilities had existed.
Bill Hamilton
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William E. Hamilton, Jr, Ph.D. | Staff Research Engineer
Chassis and Vehicle Systems | General Motors R&D Center | Warren, MI
William_E._Hamilton@notes.gmr.com
810 986 1474 (voice) | 810 986 3003 (FAX) | whamilto@mich.com (home email)