Well, it has been that way for ages, and it's the very reason why UTC is defined as it is: to stay near UT within a small margin.
Ah yes, but how large should the "small margin" be? And why? If you read the old papers regarding time scales and UTC you get a hint what of the major motivation was. It was navigation; specifically for sailors with sextants. That's why the margin was originally 0.1 second. And that's also why the radio broadcast folks got involved (you needed to communicate accurate time and DUT1 to ships at sea, by radio). But times have changed. We now have GPS, VLBI, the web, sat phones, mobile phones. No one relies on sextants and DUT1 radio broadcasts anymore. It makes sense to address how large the "small margin" can be from time to time to more efficiently serve the users of UTC and to better reflect or take advantage of social and technological changes. Does it continue to have to be sub-second? Or would it be ok to let the margin grow to a second, or two, or even 10? /tvb _______________________________________________ LEAPSECS mailing list LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs