[LEAPSECS] "China move could call time on GMT"

[Rob Seaman]

Whatever the logical underpinnings and human motivations - good or bad - of any position on this issue, I don't believe there has ever been a response the numerous times it has been pointed out that astronomers are among the world's power users for *both* Earth orientation timescales *and* even-interval timescales.  Our general-purpose networks use NTP widely and well.  Our special-purpose applications such as, but not limited to, VLBI have extremely high synchronization requirements.  The design and engineering for our projects are often unprecedented in nature and scale.  Our computers can be pretty interesting beasts with tight tolerances of all sorts.

Earth orientation clocks and even-interval chronometers are simply two different kinds of timekeepers.  It is bad engineering to pretend otherwise.  The proposers have not invested sufficient resources in understanding the implications.  Their proposal is lacking anything resembling a coherent engineering plan.  If they desire a robust and long-lived solution, they should go back to the drawing board and seek not only a broader consensus but a broader community of stakeholders, scientists and engineers.

Rob Seaman
National Optical Astronomy Observatory
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On Dec 30, 2011, at 1:04 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:


> In message <1F8F75F2-2133-4C5F-85CE-70D444A63798 at gmail.com>, Dennis Ferguson wr

> ites:

> 

>> It seems like the difference between opposition and support

>> might be the ownership of a satellite navigation system (which

>> uses Yet Another Not-UTC Timescale for its system time).

> 

> Or, more generally:  Tightly time-synchronized computers.