[LEAPSECS] presentations from AAS Future of Time sessions

[Ian Batten]

On 16 Jan 2014, at 09:33, Tom Van Baak <tvb at leapsecond.com> wrote:


>> This notion leaves open the question of the name UTC.  In particular,

>> can the delegates to the ITU-R RA be persuaded to vote for a new

>> version of TF.460 if they are aware that the new wording will change

>> the legal definition of the word "day" in every country which has

>> adopted UTC as its time scale?

> 

> Steve,

> 

> What is a typical example of the legal definition of a day? Would that definition be affected if DUT1 were allowed to grow to 2 s or 10 s or 60 s instead of 0.9 s?


That ship's already sailed. Days are the intervals between successive civil time midnights, and countries which follow daylight savings already cope perfectly happily with legal days that are 23 and 25 hours long.   The adoption of mean time removed any immediate link with solar noon on an arbitrary day anyway.

ian