[LEAPSECS] LEAPSECS Digest, Vol 45, Issue 1

[Ian Batten]

>

> I'd wager that UTC, whatever its realization, would likely trump any

> locally written laws.


It'll be interesting in the UK

* There's no doubt that UK legal time is GMT, Interpretation Act 1978,  
S.9

*  There's no doubt that whatever GMT is, it's solar, and there's no  
doubt that whatever UTC is, it isn't solar and would be even less  
solar without leap seconds,

* There's no doubt that proposed legislation to change UK legal time  
to UTC failed to be passed in 1997, and an extensive history of the  
issue got read into Hansard.

You'd have a hell of a job showing UK time was UTC in the face of that.



>  After all, UTC has been a widely accepted

> approximation of the local laws that's attained the force of law

> through repetitive use


That's right, but |DUT1|<1 means that for the purposes of integer  
arithmetic it's barely more than a rounding error.   There's clear,  
modern legislation to the contrary.


> (how many real-time realizations of UT1 are

> propagated, in comparison to UTC).  So underlying technical changes to

> UTC may not change that.  It would take a long, and complicated, legal

> argument to show that UT1 is what should be used


Not in the UK, see above.


> (even though nobody

> knows what it is, day to day).


That's the paradox, isn't it!

ian