Dear Zefram, thank you for your comments. I have learned a lot from them, and will only discuss a few.
On Mon Jan 9 13:57:13 EST 2017 you write: "No, there's no tie between Julian Dates and apparent solar time. JDs can be used equally well with apparent and mean solar time. JDs are in fact also used with a great many other time scales that do not maintain synchronisation with these." Julian days count solar days. I don't know about the other timescales, but julian days somehow count from solar noon, and that is why I wrote the julian period count apparent solar days. Without leap seconds in the civil time, then in a very long time-span the number of calendar days not nessesarily match the number of solar days. So in a very long time-span the number of julian days can no longer be used without cultural bias. And when julian days can no longer be used without cultural bias the scientific community will have to choose between julian days and the gregorian calendar. On Mon Jan 9 14:58:54 EST 2017 you write: "If the use of UTC (with leap seconds) were abolished for civil time, in favour of a TI time scale that amounts to TAI plus some fixed offset, then it would of course be necessary for TI to be divided up into days. This would be required in order to plug TI into the existing civil horological mechanisms that have evolved with UT. It would look much like the same as how TAI is conventionally represented. But even with the division into days having become necessary rather than merely conventional, there is still a totally free choice as to which calendar to use to label the days. Indeed, it is inevitable that each locality adopting TI would continue to use whatever calendar it had formerly used with UT." When it becomes necessary to plug TI into the existing civil horological mechanisms that have evolved I don't think there will be "a totally free choice as to which calendar to use to label the days". I think the only choice will be the gregorian calendar, because that calendar is the only one in universal use. Of course theoretically it will be a free choice, but practically the calendar chosen will be the gregorian one. Religions who use either a solar, a lunar or a luni/solar calendar will still use their calendar for religious purposes, but for civil and scientific purposes the gregorian calendar will be the only one to use. ______________________________________ >> LEAPSECS mailing list >> LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com >> https://pairlist6.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs >> > >
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