[LEAPSECS] the big artillery

Steffen Nurpmeso sdaoden at yandex.com
Thu Nov 6 08:10:43 EST 2014


Bonjour,

Michael Deckers via LEAPSECS <leapsecs at leapsecond.com> wrote:
 |    On 2014-11-05 11:28, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
 |> Oh, the German Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) also
 |> has a general -- at least -- overview of the set of problems.
 |> (English: [1] and all around that; oops, not everything is
 |> translated, what a shame!  I hope it's not due to lack of
 |> resources, which seems to become notorious in Germany [for things
 |> that really matter at least].)
 |> ......
 |>    [1] <https://www.ptb.de/cms/en/fachabteilungen/abt4/f\
 |>    b-44/ag-441/realisation-of-the-si-second.html>
 |>    Rest under
 |>    <https://www.ptb.de/cms/en/fachabteilungen/abt4/fb-44\
 |>    /ag-441/realisation-of-legal-time-in-germany/>

 |   The very beginning of the last reference is misleading and

..coordinated-universal-time-utc.html

 |   wrong:
 |
 |      "Properties of UTC
 |
 |       The time scale UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) owes its
 |       existence to the CCIR (International Consultative Committee
 |       of Radiocommunications) of the ITU (International
 |       Telecommunications Union) which proposed to broadcast
 |       time signals worldwide in a "coordinated" way, i.e.
 |       by reference to a common time scale."
 |
 |   The concept for UTC was devised by people from the BIH
 |   and some other metrology institutes, not by the CCIR;
 |   and the CCIR has never produced a time scale. It is
 |   unfortunate that most sources about time and time scales
 |   are full of inaccuracies and errors like these, perpetuated
 |   through hundreds of papers and books.

Hm, indeed a sloppy translation of the original german text

  Die Einführung der Zeitskala UTC geht auf Vorschläge des CCIR
  (Comité Consultatif International des Radiocommunications)
  zurück

which is more like "Introduction of the time scale UTC originates
in suggestions made by..".  And isn't that in line with Steve
Allen's sleuthing, which ends up saying

  Recommendation 374 contained the details of what is now
  informally referred to as the original form of UTC even though
  the CCIR did not use that name.

But of course passion can't be replaced by anything else.
Maybe money?

--steffen


More information about the LEAPSECS mailing list