[LEAPSECS] Back to Basics

[Warner Losh]

  On 11/03/2010 12:25, Steve Allen wrote:

> On Wed 2010-11-03T18:22:16 +0000, Tony Finch hath writ:

>> That is very strange wording, given that UTC is specified by the ITU-R but

>> only endorsed by the CGPM. Is it that the BIPM has a lot of operational

>> responsibility for UTC, and they are an agency under the authority of the

>> CGPM?

> Remember that the standing CGPM resolution says that UTC is

> mean solar time.

> http://www1.bipm.org/jsp/en/ViewCGPMResolution.jsp?CGPM=15&RES=5

>

> So is this a tacit acknowledgment that this new US law was intended to

> be conformant with the previous law wherein congress explicitly

> specified that US legal time was mean solar time?

>

> Again we would need judge and jury to answer.

Mean Solar time, as interpreted by the Secretary of Commerce, was the 
law.  That's why UTC was the de-facto standard.  The Secretary of 
Commerce decided that was a mean solar time...   Maybe the justification 
was that the BIPM/CGPM said it was.

Warner