On 3/21/2014 10:08 PM, John Hasler wrote:
Jerry Stuckle writes:
The time needs to be accurate
TAI is accurate. UTC is fudged. The Earth is not a clock. BTW GPS
time ignores leap seconds. It's what scientists most often use for
precise timing.
Not all of them. Many use UTC. UTC is readily available via many radio
transmitters around the world. TAI not so much. And synchronizing via
the internet is not good when you need microsecond accuracy; it is with
radio stations.
GPS is a whole different story, unrelated to scientific exploration. It
uses TAI only because it doesn't matter WHICH clock they use - the
satellites are synchronized to a master, and receivers look at the time
difference between the signals from multiple satellites. Adding or
subtracting a leap second from all of the satellites would require
reprogramming every GPS unit on the planet. But it could use ANY time
measurement, as long as the receivers understood what the measurement is.
Jerry
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