On 27 April 2015 at 21:48, Tony Finch <d...@dotat.at> wrote: > > GMT is the British national timescale. It hasn't been Greenwich nor Mean Time for decades, > so what it is called has nothing to do with its technical details.
This is perhaps rather like DVDs that state they are either PAL or NTSC, when in fact the source material has never been anywhere near an analogue encoding system. For some reason the producers have decided that the public have latched on to those technically originated abbreviations, and understand them easier than the 625 or 525 line system numbers that would be a more accurate description of the material. Likewise, G.M.T. became a well-known name, and so we stick with it, despite the technical inaccuracy. We "time-lords" know the difference, but the general public, who don't need to, don't. I found that Asia-Pacific conference material on YouTube was interesting, especially all the words the Chinese have for various units of time! (And may thanks for the YouTube replay-speed tip!!) I was disappointed that the Japanese were in favour of keeping the name "UTC" for any new tine-system, but can sort of see their reasoning, and after all, it would still be "co-ordinated"! However, I would actually hope that any new leap-less time-system would be given a new name, and with the increasing difference from GMT, the public would eventually get to know that new name instead.
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