On 4/11/2011 2:50 PM, Tony Finch wrote:
Rob Seaman<[email protected]> wrote:
No. The words "Universal Time" will be ambiguous. Under any given
circumstances listeners will ask whether their usage in a document
refers to the redefined UTC, or to the original UTC (documents are
forever), or to some other variation such as GMT or UT1 or UT2, or just
to the general concept of a timescale stationary with respect to the
synodic day.
I see no big difference from the current ambiguity of the terms UT and GMT
and UTC. You seem to be complaining that people who don't care about
precision will use imprecise terms ambiguously.
Tony.
At present, if a British person were to participate in a US E-Bay
auction, any difference between the
time kept by the British person and the US E-Bay servers could easily be
attributed to internet
transmission delays, the time required to press keyboard keys, and the
error inherent in manually
setting a wrist watch. If leap seconds are abolished, and Britain
decides to maintain an approximation
to mean time 0 degrees longitude, +/- a fraction of a second (modulo
time zones, as currently defined),
over time the difference in timekeeping systems will become clearly
perceptible and clearly
distinguishable to people with no special equipment beyond a carefully
set wrist watch.
Gerry
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