Hello Slawomir, Tremendous post.
"Slawomir K. Grzechnik" wrote: > In reality time service on the Internet is taken very seriously these days. > Most servers use internally UTC (GMT) and are synchronized through the net > which is not that simple if you take into account variable route and time > of arriving packets. Yet more or less it is done fine thanks to smart IETF > engineers and few protocols they devised. Really important servers are > synchronized by chips receiving time signals. How is the synchronization done to preserve precision and accuracy between stations? There are so many technologies nowadays which are dependent upon consistently accurate and increasingly precise time (GPS, Broadcasting, Space work, etc.) that synchronization among stations is, as you say, not trivial. (UTC time updates at different locales would be dependent upon path lengths and characteristics of the transmission media.) Is signal dispersion an issue? (i.e. difference between phase and group velocity) Are we into relativistic effects when transmitting/receiving between stations with a relative velocity? > Linux (free Unix) calendar program "cal" has range 1-9999 years. It does > include the transition to Gregorian Calendar which in the British Empire > took place in 1752. In Catholic countries the reform was introduced in > 1582, as prescribed by Pope Gregory, and in Oct of that year 11 days were > skipped. There were reports of rioting in many places as people believed > that the Pope robbed them of 11 days of their lifes. 1600 was the first > centurial year that was a leap year in countries that accepted the calendar > reform in 1582. > > This is the output from Linux "cal" for Sep 1752 (Unix was originated on > American soil so 1752 for skipping days is correct) > > September 1752 > Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa > 1 2 14 15 16 > 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 > 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 I recall reading (somewhere) that the riots were caused by the fact that landlords charged one month of rent for October, 1582 while the tenants got only 20 days of accommodation. I wonder what the money-lenders did! How were dates communicated between Catholic countries and British Empire countries during the period 1582-1752? Thanks again for a most informative and clarifying post. Tom Semadeni Britthome Bounty ><<((((*> 45.768* North 80.600* West