On Mon 2006-01-09T09:59:43 -0700, Rob Seaman hath writ:
> Perhaps we might now bring the cartographic community inside the
> firewall and clue them into what is being proposed?
The cartographic community is effectively the IERS (short for the new
IERRFS). They define all global systems of terrestrial and celestial
measurement. Curiously, they do it not in accord with the railroaded
Greenwich must be zero (oops, we really meant the other Greenwich, oh
well, sorry all you folks who have Ordnance Survey maps) result of the
1884 IMC, but rather in more accord with the dissenting opinion of
Janssen, the astronomer delegate from France. (A curious historical
note is that Newcomb apparently recognized the validity of Janssen's
notions at the IMC, but 20 years later in his memoirs Newcomb denied
that.)
The principal reason that we are not arguing ex post facto about a
change to UTC which has already been implemented is that the original
definition of UTC involved (at least at some points in its drafting)
diplomatic relations between enough different agencies to require two
hands worth of fingers when counting.
--
Steve Allen <sla_at_ucolick.org> WGS-84 (GPS)
UCO/Lick Observatory Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat +36.99858
University of California Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06014
Santa Cruz, CA 95064 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m
Received on Mon Jan 09 2006 - 10:42:06 PST