[LEAPSECS] nails in the coffin of mean solar time

[Greg Hennessy]

>> I also don't consider the laws in question to be of any appreciable 

>> difference over what the current status is.

> 

> If there is no appreciable difference, why is a change being sought?


To codify existing practice. We don't use GMT any more, we use UTC. It 
isn't even clear that with the closing of Greenwich observatory if GMT 
even exits.


> By seeking to replace mean solar time as the foundation of U.S. civil 

> time, there is a tacit admission that UTC may subsequently not remain 

> tied to mean solar time. 


Well, we *don't* use mean solar time as the foundation of US civil time 
anymore. Not even USNO runs transit telescopes to take sightings of the 
sun. I consider the current situation as one where the laws don't match 
practice, and don't see any problem with updating the laws. To be 
against the proposed updates of the law on the basis that UTC in the 
future *might* not include leap seconds seems overly paranoid to me.