[LEAPSECS] civil-solar correlation with TI

Zefram zefram at fysh.org
Sat Dec 27 08:43:33 EST 2008


Rob Seaman wrote:

>Again, the issue is mean solar time, not local solar time.


This sentence doesn't make sense to me. You seem to have a different
definition of either "mean" or "local" from me. To be clear: the
(periodic) difference between apparent and mean solar time does not
affect my argument, so I ignored it; likewise, the difference between
solar time at one's actual longitude (local solar time) and solar time
at a nearby round-numbered longitude (standard time) is small and does
not affect the psychology.


>it is a question of discovering requirements implicit in our society.


Good point.


> Historians looking backward

>want to relate events worldwide and arrange them into coherent

>timelines.


Yes, they'll want the Olson database.


> Whatever the preferences of the ITU, they will discover

>that it is simply unacceptable to allow local dates to vary secularly

>from civil timekeeping dates.


I don't see how this follows. Given the Olson database they'll be able
to apply the offsets correctly.

If the date drift per se really is a problem, that would be a reason
to argue for the IDL-jumping version of my scenario, rather than the
unbounded-timezone-offset version.

-zefram


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