RE: [LEAPSECS] Draft Questionnaire

From: Seeds, Glen <Glen.Seeds_at_Cognos.COM>
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 10:44:40 -0500

I haven't heard yet why those who want to freeze UTC can't switch to TAI,
which was created for this purpose, and is as applicable to Mars as to our
beloved planet. If it's simply the cost of the one-time switch, then perhaps
it would make more sense to create a TAI2, which is TAI plus a fixed offset
that happens to match UTC today only.
  /glen

-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Davies [mailto:ls_at_EDAVIES.NILDRAM.CO.UK]
Sent: January 19, 2003 5:50 AM
To: LEAPSECS_at_ROM.USNO.NAVY.MIL
Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] Draft Questionnaire


Rob Seaman wrote quite a lot I agree with but then:
>
> Might I also suggest one additional change to this discussion?
> Since under this "no new leap second" suggestion (whatever the
> details) UTC would stop being Universal in any sense of the word,
> could we just agree that instead of modifying UTC, we're proposing
> a new time standard, and that this new standard should be called
> something else entirely?

It would still be "universal" in the sense of being the basis of
civil time throughout the world.

Leaving out leap seconds doesn't make UTC less universal except
in the rather weak sense of nolonger linking it to the universe's
rotation around the Earth :-). If anything, dropping leap seconds
makes UTC more widely applicable. Will the Peoples Republic of
Mars really be pleased to have to adjust its clocks to align with
the vagaries of the Earth's rotation?

I think it would be a bad idea to introduce a new name. People
still use "GMT" rather than "UTC". To try to change to yet
another name would only add to the confusion to no benefit.

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Received on Mon Jan 20 2003 - 07:45:04 PST