Re: [LEAPSECS] what should a time standard encompass?

From: John Cowan <jcowan_at_REUTERSHEALTH.COM>
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 17:45:41 -0500 (EST)

Steve Allen scripsit:

> Yes, but the reasonable solution is to develop protocols that permit
> the distribution of as many different forms of time as are deemed
> useful, and then to educate time users to choose the time scale that
> suits them best.

I agree. However, civilians can only handle one timescale, and that is
civil time.

> It would be just as easy for a legislature to assert that TAI become
> the civil time standard.

It would deeply suck, however, for some to switch to TAI while others
remained on (the current definition of) UTC. Sometimes it's better to
change what a name refers to than to change the referring name.

After all, what is summer time but a gimmick to get people to go to work
earlier? Can you imagine the backlash from legislation that said "From
date X to date Y, all businesses, schools, etc. will open an hour earlier?"
No, it's easier to change the labels in such a case.

> Here be the crux. Some one or some agency is inevitably going to have
> to take the public risk of proclaiming this decision.

Right you are.

> Who are the parties making this decision? I suspect that they may
> indeed fear the ridicule of posterity, for they appear to be setting
> this process up as a multi-year initiative by multiple committees
> whose membership is obscure, meetings to attend, and minutes published
> in proceedings with low circulation and exorbitant price. It will be
> hard to blame anybody for whatever result happens.

One horselaugh is worth a thousand syllogisms.
        --H.L. Mencken

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Received on Mon Jan 27 2003 - 14:45:50 PST

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