In message: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0601030732450.2757_at_cass18>
Peter Bunclark <psb_at_ast.cam.ac.uk> writes:
: And these "Rocket Scientists" can't even spell. Perhaps they can't read,
: either. Surely 5 decades into the space age there exists a "How to build a
: Spacecraft" text book with a chapter on timescales?
I don't have high hopes. It took me almost 3 years of working for a
company whose business was high precision time and frequency systems
to learn about TAI. This despite asking our time scientists if there
was a universally accepted time scale without leap seconds. When I
asked them about TAI later, they told me they knew about it when I
asked, but its use was generally discouraged and none of our customers
ever wanted it.
It took another years of piecing things together from different
sources to understand where the canonical information about leap
seconds, frequency adjustments (pre-leapseconds) and the like was to
be found.
The information is out there, but it is so dispersed that it can be
hard for someone to find. Maybe the latest leap second will cause
this situation to change...
Warner
Received on Tue Jan 03 2006 - 00:39:06 PST