[LEAPSECS] the big artillery

[Magnus Danielson]

On 10/31/2014 02:49 AM, Sanjeev Gupta wrote:
>
> On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 7:01 AM, Harlan Stenn <stenn at ntp.org
> <mailto:stenn at ntp.org>> wrote:
>
>     I'm still thinking the answer is "leave existing 'names' alone - if you
>     want TAI use TAI. If you want UTC, use UTC.  If you want something new,
>     call it something new."
>
>     If people are using a defined name for a defined purpose and it works
>     for them, leave it alone.  If people are using a defined name for a
>     defined purpose and it does not work for them, this group needs to come
>     up with a new name for the thing they think will solve their problems
>
>
> +1
>
> I understand the issue that "UTC" is a part of many laws and documents
> that will be difficult to change, so it is easier to change the
> definition of UTC.  But this still does not make it right.
>
> As an extreme example, and more in jest, consider if a number of
> legislatures enacted laws to make maths simpler, by declaring that the
> "adjustments past the second decimal place to pi need not apply", and
> hence "pi will be fixed at 3.14".  This will save lots of time and
> effort, and help programmers and implementers make fewer mistakes.
>
> Will we, because it is hard to get governments to make changes, say,
> "OK, pi = 3.14, and any one (like Rob) who still wants the old figure
> can look up the correction from IAU (but not call it pi)"?
>
> I know this is an inexact analogy.
>
> When it was realised that the it was easier to work with a value of
> (Planck Constant / 2 pi), that (h-bar) was not renamed to by the Plank
> Constant, it has a new name: Dirac Constant or Reduced Planck Constant.
> We use the h-bar more often, but do not re-purpose the original name.
>
> Give it a new name, please.  Independent of what the "fundamental unit" is.

TAI and UTC already exists, but the use of TAI has been actively 
discouraged. The trouble is that those that wants a TAI-like time-scale 
sometimes needs to comply to UTC needs, and for a number of reasons they 
have difficulty in using it, so they want to make UTC a TAI-timescale.

Cheers,
Magnus