Tony Finch wrote:
Such as? I can't think of anything simple enough to count as common
sense
which depends on the relation between UT1 and the various local times.
As with most issues discussed on this list, questions need to be
framed properly before they can be addressed.
The key role that UTC plays in framing the "simple utilitarian
inferences regarding the world around us" that I mentioned is as a
prediction of UT1. UT1 itself is only known retroactively.
Similarly, UTC (and GPS) provide access to TAI, which we have been
informed time and again is some mystical perfect timescale unsuitable
for use by mere humans. (Or rather, it isn't UTC per se, but the
various realizations of UTC that provide dual access to interval and
Earth orientation timescales.)
Universally (to use that word metaphorically yet again), we do not use
the "various local times" to compute or intuit global assertions about
our world. Which is to say, we may observe that the Sun is up or down
at some particular moment, but to predict the behavior tomorrow we
always tie into Universal Time in some fashion.
Currently access to UTC is automatically supplied (for both simple and
complex utilitarian purposes) because it is built into the system of
standard time zones.
The ITU proposal would sunder this. Yes, we could cheat some of the
purposes some of the time, and some other purposes all of the time,
but most definitely not all of the purposes forever.
The real answer to "I can't think of" queries is to point out that
these are explicit pleas to engage in a process of requirement
discovery. Neither God nor science reside in the gaps of our
imagination.
Rob
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