Re: [LEAPSECS] Draft Questionnaire

From: John Cowan <jcowan_at_reutershealth.com>
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 16:38:35 -0500 (EST)

Ed Davies scripsit:

> 4. Civil times around the world will continue to be an exact
> number of hours (multiples of 3'600 SI seconds) (or, in a
> few cases, half hours) offset from UTC.

In fact Asia/Katmandu (Nepal civil time) is UTC+05h45, and Pacific/Chatham
(the civil time of the Chatham Is. of New Zealand) is UTC+13h45. So it
is better to say that civil time is a whole number of SI minutes (each
of 60 SI seconds) offset from UTC.

Indeed, from 1919 to 1972 the civil time of Liberia was UTC+00h44m30s.

> 5. Civil times will gradually drift away from their associated
> local mean times.

In many cases, the civil time is very far from LMT already. The whole
of China is on UTC+8, though China stretches across more than 2h of
longitude. Indeed, the western city of Urumqi was until 1980 on UTC+6
(LMT approx. UTC+05h50), so the discrepancy between civil time and LMT
is now more than two hours, and when China used summer time (1986-91),
the discrepancy was in summer more than three hours.

--
John Cowan  jcowan_at_reutershealth.com  www.reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan
"The exception proves the rule."  Dimbulbs think: "Your counterexample proves
my theory."  Latin students think "'Probat' means 'tests': the exception puts
the rule to the proof."  But legal historians know it means "Evidence for an
exception is evidence of the existence of a rule in cases not excepted from."
Received on Sat Jan 18 2003 - 13:38:45 PST

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