[LEAPSECS] Schedule for success

[Jonathan E. Hardis]

>The NIST web pages also make the wikipedia-cited claim that the ITU

>chose the apellation "UTC".

>

>http://tf.nist.gov/general/misc.htm#Anchor-14550

>

>I can find no evidence to support this, and much evidence to refute

>it.  Perhaps the evidence is buried in one of the private documents

>shelved in Geneva...


Steve,

We're talking about a technical decision made in 1970, not 1790. 
Many of the people involved then are still around, active in the 
field.  If this story were not true, don't you think that SOMEONE 
would have spoken up about it by now?

'Fess up.  Do you think the moon landing the year earlier (1969) also 
lacks evidence to support it?


>I find those NIST statements to be about as accurate as the NIST 

>press release this month which indicates that their 

>less-stable-than-quartz-crystal ammonia molecule clock was the first 

>atomic clock.


I'm not entirely sure what you're fussing about.  That ammonia is a 
molecule and not an atom?  That the first clock system based on 
discrete quantum states turned out to be not as good as cesium would 
ultimately be?

I have no problem referring to it as an "atomic" clock since all the 
action is in the nitrogen atom, which moves back and forth between 
the two minima of its double-well (at least in superpositions of such 
states).  I remind you that Charles Townes built his first maser -- 
an ammonia maser -- in 1954.  It was a nice prototype system of its 
day.

   - Jonathan