[LEAPSECS] Meeting with Wayne Whyte

[Rob Seaman]

On Feb 1, 2011, at 12:05 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:


> Note that I said "that's merely an artifact of how it is defined.",

> not "The name 'Universal Time' has an unchangeable magic meaning."


And I suppose "Greenwich Mean Time" is completely fair game, too.  And "Temps Atomique International" might designate a timescale created from an ensemble of clepsydra.  And "GPS" could provide spatial and temporal coordinates derived from a System of Guinea Pigs.

Universal Time is a concept predating the ITU whippersnappers.  (Re)define some other timescale...

...especially since the whole idea appears to be to use UTC as a Nelson's Bridge to ultimately deprecate TAI.

For precision timekeepers they appear to have remarkably little respect for the precise meaning of time.

Rob Seaman
National Optical Astronomy Observatory