[LEAPSECS] WP7A status and Re: clinical evidence about time and sun

[John Cowan]

Rob Seaman scripsit:


> And how precisely is this making your point?  In the absence of a  

> coherent zoneinfo scheme like Steve Allen's, you are asserting that  

> the (literally) rock solid basis of mean solar time anchored deep in  

> the Earth,


Nothing anyone can do will change the value of mean solar time.


> be replaced with a completely unreliable mapping that  

> varies under diverse authority both in geographic location and by  

> decade and century.  


I'm pointing out that we are *already* doing that when establishing
local time.


> Again - civil time is clearly a flavor of mean solar time, whether or  

> not we decide to cheat by embargoing leap seconds or by sloshing the  

> timezones around.  For example, we have sent missions to Mars, and the  

> obvious and immediate response of the projects operating equipment on  

> the surface was to establish a mission clock synchronized to Martian  

> mean solar time.


Mean solar time is very important for certain purposes.  So is moonphase,
but I don't hear you howling against the Gregorian calendar and demanding
the immediate imposition of the Jewish (or Babylonian or Chinese) calendar.


> There are two types of time - interval and Earth orientation.  Civil  

> time clearly has more to do with the latter than the former.   


Oh, absolutely.  I'm not disputing that.


> Why is this controversial?


If you got the money, honey, they've got the time.  If not -- they've still
got the time.


> At the very least, someone promoting this proposal should show the  

> rest of the world and themselves the respect of creating some sort of  

> actual plan for what options might exist when the embargoed leap  

> seconds turn into minutes and hours.  


Actual plan:  Switch to DST and double DST when the difference between
mean solar time and local time becomes embarrassingly large.  (And if
Urumqi isn't embarrassed, why should Washington be?)

-- 
John Cowan    cowan at ccil.org    http://ccil.org/~cowan
If a traveler were informed that such a man [as Lord John Russell] was
leader of the House of Commons, he may well begin to comprehend how the
Egyptians worshiped an insect.  --Benjamin Disraeli