Re: [LEAPSECS] the legacy of ephemeris time

From: <jcowan_at_reutershealth.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 16:19:59 -0500

Steve Allen scripsit:

> I assert that there is no need to disengage civil time from the sun
> just to satisfy the users of precision time. Is there any argument
> which can justify why civil time needs to be precise and uniform to a
> millisecond?

I believe there is. Disclaimer: I am *emphatically not* speaking for
my employer here.

Currently, the problem of simultaneous transactions in the world's financial
markets is handled by three things: 1s accuracy is considered good enough,
transactions are inherently serialized by individual market systems, and
distinct markets are not strongly coupled. None of these things is going to
persist, and that in a timescale of years, not centuries. In order to
correctly coordinate transactions in multiple markets, it will be necessary
to achieve subsecond accuracy in LCT -- LCT, because it is LCT that is legal
time.

--
It was impossible to inveigle           John Cowan <jcowan_at_reutershealth.com>
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Into offering the slightest apology     http://www.reutershealth.com
For his Phenomenology.                      --W. H. Auden, from "People" (1953)
Received on Mon Dec 22 2003 - 13:49:50 PST

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