Rob Seaman wrote: >Again, the issue is mean solar time, not local solar time.
This sentence doesn't make sense to me. You seem to have a different definition of either "mean" or "local" from me. To be clear: the (periodic) difference between apparent and mean solar time does not affect my argument, so I ignored it; likewise, the difference between solar time at one's actual longitude (local solar time) and solar time at a nearby round-numbered longitude (standard time) is small and does not affect the psychology. >it is a question of discovering requirements implicit in our society. Good point. > Historians looking backward >want to relate events worldwide and arrange them into coherent >timelines. Yes, they'll want the Olson database. > Whatever the preferences of the ITU, they will discover >that it is simply unacceptable to allow local dates to vary secularly >from civil timekeeping dates. I don't see how this follows. Given the Olson database they'll be able to apply the offsets correctly. If the date drift per se really is a problem, that would be a reason to argue for the IDL-jumping version of my scenario, rather than the unbounded-timezone-offset version. -zefram _______________________________________________ LEAPSECS mailing list LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
