[LEAPSECS] operational time -- What's in a name?

Steve Allen sla at ucolick.org
Mon Mar 31 10:01:41 EDT 2008


On Mon 2008-03-31T12:20:06 +0100, Tony Finch hath writ:

> So you think that the millions of existing radio controlled clocks and

> watches should stop showing civil time?


Yes, that is, yes to a subsecond precision.

They would be showing TI instead of UT, another international
standard, and a difference which (to replay the words of the folks who
would abolish leap seconds) would amount to less than two minutes by
the end of the century.

I expect that Casio, Timex, and the other radio-controlled walk clock
and wristwatch manufacturers would cry all the way to the bank as
people bought new ones when the difference in seconds became notable
to those who care that much.

And for the rest, most of those timepieces would have disintegrated
from their poor construction prior to the time when the difference
between TI and UTC was larger than a non-radio-controlled timepiece.

--
Steve Allen <sla at ucolick.org> WGS-84 (GPS)
UCO/Lick Observatory Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat +36.99855
University of California Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06015
Santa Cruz, CA 95064 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m


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