Re: [LEAPSECS] two world clocks

From: John Cowan <jcowan_at_reutershealth.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 23:20:23 -0500

Rob Seaman scripsit:

> b) Currently the tables are maintained and updated by members of the
> precision timing community who should indeed be commended for their
> excellent work over the last quarter century and more. The proposal on
> the table would require all 6+ billion of us to keep his or her own
> tables up-to-date. The current situation is better.

I don't understand that at all. People who need Earth angle (and I am
*not* opposed to making that widely available) will need to pick up
a correction table from IERS, there's no doubt about that. IERS will
continue in exactly its current mission, it's just that its output
will no longer affect the value of LCT.

And as for keeping tables up to date, that's exactly what programmers
(especially programmers of embedded systems) are complaining about having
to do now, just to track UTC and LCT.

> People need good sources of time for a
> variety of reasons. We are discussing a complete abandonment of the
> provision of Earth "rotation information" to the civilian public
> worldwide.

Not at all. We are simply abandoning the notion that LCT is the right
way to provide that information.

--
Henry S. Thompson said, / "Syntactic, structural,               John Cowan
Value constraints we / Express on the fly."     jcowan_at_reutershealth.com
Simon St. Laurent: "Your / Incomprehensible     http://www.reutershealth.com
Abracadabralike / schemas must die!"            http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Received on Thu Jan 20 2005 - 20:20:38 PST

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