Richard Melville wrote: > > > > Bruce Dubbs wrote: > > I suppose we can add that it can also cause problems due to > inaccurate > > time by omitting all leap seconds since 1970. > > The problem is limited to the regions having GMT as legal time (or > BST=GMT+1). > > Pierre > > > That's interesting; why is that? > > Richard > >
To be short, UTC is based on atomic clocks. Because the earth revolution speed varies (it always decreased till 1970), in UTC time the 0° meridian (solar time) tends to drift East. The leap seconds are added to UTC to keep the 0° meridian at Greenwich. In the regions where the legal time is UTC+x, for instance Central Europe Summer Time, CEST=UTC+2, the difference between local time and UTC time is obvious. In the regions where the legal time is based on GMT (like UK) the difference between local and UTC requires a correction of leap seconds. There is a debate to abolish the leap seconds seen as a nightmare in the digital world (next international conference in 2015). A majority of countries were in favor in 2012 but the main question was how to do it? Pierre -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/blfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
