In message: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Peter Bunclark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: : And these "Rocket Scientists" can't even spell. Perhaps they can't read, : either. Surely 5 decades into the space age there exists a "How to build a : Spacecraft" text book with a chapter on timescales?
I don't have high hopes. It took me almost 3 years of working for a company whose business was high precision time and frequency systems to learn about TAI. This despite asking our time scientists if there was a universally accepted time scale without leap seconds. When I asked them about TAI later, they told me they knew about it when I asked, but its use was generally discouraged and none of our customers ever wanted it. It took another years of piecing things together from different sources to understand where the canonical information about leap seconds, frequency adjustments (pre-leapseconds) and the like was to be found. The information is out there, but it is so dispersed that it can be hard for someone to find. Maybe the latest leap second will cause this situation to change... Warner