[LEAPSECS] stale leap second information

[Kevin Birth]

The ITU-R is what social scientists call a supranational institution.  These are institutions that make recommendations that have a tendency to trump national sovereignty.  The manner in which this trumping of national laws occurs is that users tend to follow the supranational recommendation regardless of what their national laws say.  The International Meridian Conference of 1884 is a good example.  France did not agree with the recommendations of that conference and even passed legislation stating that it did not agree but in its metrology it de facto complied with the recommendations (with the help of the sophistry of stating that its official time was Paris time with an offset that matched the Greenwich meridian).

As a supranational technical institution, the ITU-R also plays a peculiar role of turning technical scientific discussions into political debates.  It is an institution that has as part of its mission the odd practice of voting on science, and in such voting, it in fact votes on which scientific interests/lobbies are the most "important." 

Since the ITU-R is both scientific and political, one can hope for better communication and clearer roles, but one also gets diplomacy, which often is not about clarity, but, as one of my mentors once described such things, it is about humbuggery and manipulation.

Best,

Kevin



 


________________________________________
From: LEAPSECS [leapsecs-bounces at leapsecond.com] on behalf of Rob Seaman [seaman at noao.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2015 9:20 AM
To: Leap Second Discussion List
Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] stale leap second information

On Jan 13, 2015, at 6:10 AM, Brooks Harris <brooks at edlmax.com> wrote:

> On 2015-01-12 06:42 PM, Rob Seaman wrote:
>> On Jan 12, 2015, at 2:53 PM, Martin Burnicki <martin.burnicki at meinberg.de> wrote:
>>
>>> I've suggested at various occasions that the IERS should be the authoritative source for a leap second file.
>> There were discussions at both the 2013 and 2011 UTC meetings
> Which meetings? I mean, what standards body?

Institutions other than standards bodies are interested in this issue.  See sponsors at the bottom of:

        http://futureofutc.org

The proceedings were published by the American Astronautical Society.

> If I understand the provenance, BIPM is responsible for maintaining atomic time and TAI, IERS is responsible maintaining for UT1 and Leap Seconds, and ITU is responsible for "time dissemination". Whats not so clear, and it would be reassuring to know, is how the information is officially shared between these bodies and to what degree its automated.
>
> If ITU is responsible for "time dissemination" it would seem like they should also be responsible for "time metadata dissemination", ie: Leap Second announcements, history, and related.

The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations.  ITU-R TF.460.6 (and predecessors / successors) is a purely a recommendation.  Others can comment on whether the ITU has any actual operational role in disseminating time.

More fundamental than any operational or standards body is physical reality.  It is simply a fact that a day on Earth and on other terrestrial bodies in the solar system means a synodic day, i.e., mean solar time.  How that fact is incorporated into standards is a matter for debate, but real world constraints (e.g., the speed of light, Ohm's Law, etc.) apply to all standards.

Better communication and clearer roles between the various organizations would likely be welcomed by all.

Rob

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