On Jun 16, 2007, at 3:46 PM, M. Warner Losh wrote:
A simple work around is to move time zones over one every few hundred
years. That's a lot easier than getting leap seconds right as most
places do DSL. A single year without a DSL transition would suffice.
And each nation could choose the year they do it too, as there's
really no need to coordinate.
There IS a need to coordinate - but even a coordinated dance of the
timezones won't work, as three out of four Norwegian Fjord Ponies
will tell you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3t86i1Y_so
UTC is both a flavor of universal time - that is, an approximation to
GMT - as well as an report format for TAI. Even during a leap
second, UTC preserves a single, monotonic record of events worldwide.
Per-timezone daylight saving adjustments are possible precisely
because the underlying unity of timekeeping is preserved elsewhere.
What you describe would be a return to pre-universal time chaos.
Rob Seaman
NOAO
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