[LEAPSECS] Schedule for success

Rob Seaman seaman at noao.edu
Wed Dec 31 11:54:36 EST 2008


Steve Allen wrote:


> We have seen that the international timekeepers of the BIPM get livid

> when someone suggests that GPS time could be used in an official

> sense.

> The IERS seems to be a bit more mellow.


Does anybody have insight into what the real issue is with simply
adopting GPS time? It has long seemed that UTC is simply caught in a
crossfire between two factions of the precision timekeeping community.

If the ITU position were simply to stop distributing UTC and to start
distributing GPS (or some TI = GPS offset to avoid a jump), this whole
debate we are having would simply go away. We'd work around the new
standard. Whether or not standard time would end up layered on UTC/
GMT or on GPS/TI would make for an entertaining discussion, but it
would be a very different discussion.

Rather, the ITU is seeking to redefine UTC, and apparently GMT,
perhaps just as some gambit in a funding war or academic dispute.

What's wrong with GPS? Astronomers use it all the time, very
productively.

Rob



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