Re: [LEAPSECS] civil time = solar time

From: Steve Allen <sla_at_UCOLICK.ORG>
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 00:03:32 -0800

On Thu 2006-01-05T08:18:11 +0100, Poul-Henning Kamp hath echoed Rob:
> Which is why the longitude conference decided on a 1 hour quantum.

No, they did not.

The delegates gratuitously offered existing schemes (the US railroads
being one touted long and hard by some guy named Allen) along with
proposed schemes (one for Europe had zones on meridians spaced 10
time-minutes apart).

All of those schemes were withdrawn after being entered into the
official record. The reasoning was that their conference could not
pretend to assert any authority over local civil time in any
jurisdiction.

Only the local civil authorities can decide what passes for local
civil time. In the US the result of this will be seen this year as
many embedded devices start making daylight time transitions on the
wrong dates.

I remain in awe of McCarthy's indication that predicting leap seconds
might be acceptable over decade timescales.

I remain in dismay that said point is moot for embedded devices, for
the local civil authorities are more whimsical than the earth with
larger amplitude deviations at less predictable intervals.

--
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 Thu Jan 05 2006 - 00:03:49 PST

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