What's the point?
Two links to refresh the discussion:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/g216411573882755/
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/eopcppp/eopcppp.html
Paul Sheer wrote:
> I think what you will find is that there is no technical difference between
> moving leap seconds into TZ, and eliminating leap seconds and adjusting TZ.
Vast difference. Steve Allen's zoneinfo idea preserves universal time separate
from the new (or refurbished) atomic timescale. On the other hand, the whole
point of rubber timezones is to eradicate universal time.
I know everybody here revels in these technical bake-offs, but it risks losing
the underlying issues in the underbrush. Issue number one: atomic time and
mean solar time are two different things because SI-seconds and synodic days
are inherently distinct measures of our days.
Two suggestions for real progress on these two inherently different timescales:
1) Honor the Torino consensus and call any new leap-less atomic timescale
something other than "UTC".
2) Improve the UTC we have. The state of the art in predicting UT1 (and thus
scheduling UTC) is described in:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/g216411573882755/
The state of the art appears to be significantly better than a tenth second
over 500 days. There is an ongoing successor project:
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/eopcppp/eopcppp.html
Combining these improved predictions with prudently relaxed DUT1 constraints
should permit extending leap second scheduling to several years.
These steps can be taken today with no tedious international negotiations.
With the ITU's sword of Damocles removed we (meaning the real community of
timekeeping stakeholders that is much broader than the group here) can consider
how best to implement our next generation timekeeping system(s), rather than
how worst we can screw up the functional timekeeping we inherited from our
betters.
*That's* the point!
Rob
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