[LEAPSECS] Leapin' on the Merry-go-round

[Magnus Danielson]

From: Steve Allen <sla at ucolick.org>
Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] Leapin' on the Merry-go-round
Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 21:28:27 -0800
Message-ID: <20080103052827.GA1632 at ucolick.org>

Steve,


> On Wed 2008-01-02T23:44:25 +0000, Poul-Henning Kamp hath writ:

> > Any rulemaking we may propose, that our grandchildren or later will

> > have to implement, is at best a pointless waste of time, they're going

> > to do it their own way anyway.

> >

> > All we have to do is to leave them a clear notice what the issue

> > is, then they can decide if it is a problem and how they want to

> > fix it.

> 

> But if we are talking about international agreements, treaties,

> or contracts, our grandparents have left us a very clear notice.

> 

> The International Meridian Conference of 1884 clearly indicated

> that the Universal Day was to be a mean solar day, and by extension

> the notion of Universal Time was mean solar.

> 

> In 1975 the 15th CGPM resolved that UTC, UT, and mean solar time

> were approximately synonymous.

> 

> The countries who attended IMC or who are members of CGPM should

> understand that to allow their ITU-R delegates to abandon leap seconds

> in UTC is to violate both of these.


You could argue that ITU-R is working out of scope, if anything this is
increasingly more an ITU-T issue, if not handled properly within CGPM.
The issue lies within ITU-R for historical reasons, but if we are to modernize
timescales and put them in modern context, then the handling of the issue could
very well be the first place to start.

Cheers,
Magnus