> A propos of both the topic and the discussion of notation, I've observed > that in the U.S., hospitals (where 24-hour notation, or "military time" as > civilians inevitably call it) are one of the few businesses where wall > clocks are nearly always set to the correct time (within+/- one minute, and > often within +/- 10 seconds, as checked against my WWVB watch). The correct > time on birth and death certificates is important, but I was not aware of > how important until I saw a posting from Prof. David Mills on > comp.protocols.time.ntp in which he said that UT1 (not UTC) is the legal > standard for death certificates. My reaction was that this is fascinating > if true, but even if it is (I couldn't find any documentation of this), I > would have to wonder how DUT1 becomes an issue if the tolerance is (as > currently) less than one second? > > Does anyone have any firshand knowledge of forensic medical issues related > to DUT1? The implications of removing the 0.9s limit are clear if Prof. > Mills is correct, but my impression was that time-of-day need only be > precise to within one minute for birth and death certificates. > > > Brian Garrett
I'd be interested to hear how one measures the leading edge of the human life to death transition pulse with a precision that makes the UT1 vs. UTC question even relevant. /tvb
