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

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <5A9295BC-1704-489C-B4B1-2942C0414DF7 at noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:


>We live on a planet with charmingly irregular motions.  Attempting to  

>ignore this fact will inevitably fail, perhaps spectacularly.


Before the first timezone ever shifts to compensate for the abandoned
leapseconds, that number is almost certain to have increased to at
least two and likely more irregular rocks.

Which reminds me: you have never answered my question:

Why should mumans on Mars or the Moon, care about the rotation of
a rock they are not on when they want to time events ?  Isn't it
bad enough that relativity messes them up ?

And I still find it utterly ironic, that people like you attempt
to lock the timescale which has "Universal" in its name to a
particular piece of rock with known bad timekeeping properties.

A timescale which takes earth rotation into account should be
called "Terrestial Time Coordinated" (TTC ?) and the timescale
that takes into account the rotation of Mars should be MTC.

But the universal timescale should depend on nothing that is not
uniform throughout the Universe.  A good choice would be an
easy to measure and well defined atomic resonance under well
defined relativist circumstances.

I agree that the SI second lacks a bit before it lives up to last
clause there, but UTC with leap seconds is not a contender.

Poul-Henning


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