[LEAPSECS] drawing the battle lines

[Kevin.Birth at qc.cuny.edu]

I'm still puzzled at the reasons for stating that UT1 should not be 
considered as a time scale in this recommendation.  How does that serve 
this recommendation?  This is a bit of a different question from 
evaluating UT1 as a time scale.  Instead, it is a question about the 
reasons why the evaluation of UT1 must be included in this recommendation. 
 Does saying that UT1 is not a time scale strengthen the other points in 
any way?  Is it necessary for the other points to be accepted? 

Best,

Kevin


Kevin K. Birth, Professor
Department of Anthropology
Queens College, City University of New York
65-30 Kissena Boulevard
Flushing, NY 11367
telephone: 718/997-5518

"We may live longer but we may be subject to peculiar contagion and 
spiritual torpor or illiteracies of the imagination"  --Wilson Harris

"Tempus est mundi instabilis motus, rerumque labentium cursus." --Hrabanus 
Maurus




Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> 
Sent by: <leapsecs-bounces at leapsecond.com>
03/21/13 02:14 AM
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Re: [LEAPSECS] drawing the battle lines







On Mar 20, 2013, at 10:45 PM, Harlan Stenn wrote:


> So I gotta ask.

> 

> What's the problem with doing radar and other similar things in GPS time

> and keeping "human" time in UTC, with leap seconds?

> 

> I mean, sure, years ago timestamps were YYMMDDHHMMSS and those

> eventually got bigger, and eventually folks started noticing that things

> really got interesting twice a year jumping in and out of daylight

> savings time.

> 

> But doesn't that mean that we can solve the problem even better by

> making sure folks use timestamps that contain the timescale when that

> level of effort is useful?


Three things: (1) Leap seconds are rarely done correctly, and even when 
done correctly come at a cost that is disproportionate to their value. (2) 
You can know GPS time without knowing UTC, but not vice versa, since you 
have to know the GPS UTC offset, which isn't knowable until after the 
first almanac download, especially for a cold GPS receiver. (3) There will 
be much confusion as the two type of time are mixed.

Note that there is no daylight savings time in UTC, so that part of the 
argument can be  ignored.

Warner

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