[LEAPSECS] UTC Redefinition Advanced

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Rob Seaman said:

>> The reason I haven't been involved in this thread up to now is that I spent the last week in a place where apparent solar time and official clock time were about 7800 seconds apart. It was quite curious being near the tropics and yet at 08:30 the sky was still dark.

> 

> The basis of civil timekeeping is *mean* solar time.


Irrelevant - mean solar time was *also* about 7800 seconds from official
clock time.

The point is that the residents don't seem to have a problem with being
almost 10% of a day out of sync with the sun.


> Apparent time is a red herring.


I only mentioned apparent time because I happened to come across a sundial
- the sort where you act as the gnomon.


>> Yet the residents seem to cope quite happily without their world coming to an end.

> The corollary is that individuals (such as these tropical residents) who are unaware of the ins-and-outs of either atomic or astronomical timekeeping are quite unlikely to discuss the subject at all.  Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.


I'm not talking about drift, but simply about the fact that people cope
with large differences between MST and LLT. And I have reason to believe
that, if these residents were bothered about the issue, they would have
raised it as part of their negotiations with central government over the
last few years.

(Just to be clear, I'm talking about a western European democracy here, not a
totally different system which we're unfamiliar with.)

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather          | If you lie to the compiler,
Email: clive at davros.org     | it will get its revenge.
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