Re: [LEAPSECS] Comments on Civil Time decision tree

From: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk_at_phk.freebsd.dk>
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 16:46:00 +0200

In message <Pine.GSO.4.58.0509261526150.10343_at_cass18>, Peter Bunclark writes:
>On Mon, 26 Sep 2005, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
>>
>> On the other hand, even if we agree on one standard, or even just
>> leave UTC as it is, are the astronomers and geophysiscists going
>> to abandon UT1 ?
>>
>> If so, then this is the first I've heard about it.
>
>Of course not.

And that was exactly my point: "civil" and "scientific" timekeeping was
two different issues and they have different semantics and needs.

Most of this argument is still centered around the unarticulated
question: "who owns UTC".

Wouldn't it be fair if the non-scientific (ie: civil) world told
the astronomers (and any other scientists) to bugger off and not
impose scientific requirements on civil time ?

After all, scientists have several timescales of their own already,
and plenty of means to implement them, whereas UTC is the only
agreed upon and widely available civil timescale.

--
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk_at_FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
Received on Mon Sep 26 2005 - 07:56:44 PDT

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