[LEAPSECS] Schedule for success

[Steve Allen]

On Tue 2008-12-30T17:57:27 -0700, M. Warner Losh hath writ:

> If rocket-scientists can't get the relatively simple nomenclature of

> this topic right, what hope is there for the average engineer?


Not enough in the current scenario, given that the ITU-R docs are
proprietary to the point of inaccessability and the IERS is not well
designed to communicate it's own structure let alone the operations of
its individual bureaus nor how the division of responsibility was
decided.

Note the currently-available IERS document about leap seconds
ftp://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/BULLETINC.GUIDE
which still mentions the standard as CCIR Rec. 460-4 from 1986.
That is from when the BIH and IPMS still existed -- for IPMS see
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000ASPC..208..147Y
before the BIH timing duties were transferred to the BIPM, and the
rest of the BIH duties combined with IPMS to become IERS.

The name UTC itself originates from internal use by the international
timing bureaus, not from the CCIR.  The first publication using
UTC was from the BIH in 1964, and until 1970 the CCIR only
referred to UT2, not UTC.
And all of this is from before the CCIR reorganized into ITU-R.

In short, much of the dysfunctionality of the current scenario is a
result of NOBODY being in charge of UTC.  To say that the ITU-R is
actually the owner of UTC is somewhat of a fiction, both in history
and current practice.

I see the news coverage for this leap second as far, far better than
the stories from 2005.  If nothing else, this ITU-R WP7A process has
done a tremendous amount of education.  Yes, people continue to use
old terminology like GMT, but now they are much more aware many of
those uses are a matter of tradition.

I think that education does work, and that things can get better.
I prefer hope over despair and denial.

--
Steve Allen                 <sla at ucolick.org>                WGS-84 (GPS)
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