From: Ed Davies <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Markus Kuhn wrote: > > Ed Davies wrote on 2006-01-13 11:45 UTC: > > > >>The use of the 23:59:60 notation is described in ISO 8601. > >>Is it also specified in TF.460? > > > > > > It originally comes from ITU-R TF.460, which is a standard for radio > > time signals. > > OK, thanks.
Has anybody compiled a canonical list of the standards in this area? This is the first, I think I've seen ISO 8601 mentioned. TF.460 doesn't talk about days at all, really, or MJD. It doesn't talk about rendering a time a floating point number, only as the traditional sexagesimal fractional time, with the 'execption' during the positive leap second. If we explore the orgins of the time 12:34:56 (just after noon) we note that it is in the 13th 1/24th division of a day (since the 0th (aka 12) hour is first), the 35th 1/60th division of the 1/24th division (since the first one is 0) and the 56th 1/60th division of the 1/60th division of the 1/24th division a day. Labeling the positive leap second as 23:59:60 leads to some trouble if we try to work backwards through the above derivation. It creates an exception to the nice, orderly rules of time. But I'm digressing... The ITU-R TF.460 states: 2.2 A positive leap-second begins at 23h 59m 60s and ends at 0h 0m 0s of the first day of the following month. In the case of a negative leap-second, 23h 59m 58s will be followed one second later by 0h 0m 0s of the first day of the following month (see Annex III). 2.3 The IERS should decide upon and announce the introduction of a leap-second, such an announcement to be made at least eight weeks in advance. In Annex III, it talks about the dating of events during the positive leap second. If something were to happen .6s into that second, it would be denoted (assuming a june leap) as: 30 June, 23h 59m 60.6s UTC (the document has h, m and s superscripted, and the European (?) style centered decimal point) Warner