Dear All,
There is an article about the future of the Leap Second in the
Time and Frequency Newsletter of the (British) National Physical
Laboratory (NPL). To read this:
Visit http://www.npl.co.uk/time/
Click Download the latest Time and Frequency Newsletter
Turn to page 3 of this PDF file.
The short article is headed Leap Seconds and the future of UTC.
It is written by John Lee who is a U.K. Government adviser.
He is leading the delegation of the U.K. Office of Communications
to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Geneva in
November to discuss the proposal do abolish the leap second.
John Lee seems enthusiastic to receive e-mails from all interested
parties from ANY country. Informal contact suggests that numerous
Astronomers, Navigators and Surveyors are not happy with the idea
of abandoning the leap second.
Please consider e-mailing your own thoughts to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
I know that diallists do not think with one mind on this subject.
I have declared my own wish to Save the Leap Second. It is only
slightly naive to say that there are really only two bases for
the time systems in current use:
1. TAI, International Atomic Time, and many times which are
a constant offset from this (notably Dynamic Time, GPS time
and so on).
2. UT1, time based on the Earth's rotation, and many times which
are close to this (notably, current UTC, UT2 and GMT if you
still allow that term).
The big question is whether Civil Time round the world should use
basis 1 or basis 2. As a diallist, I find it an obvious convenience
that Civil Time the world over is (usually) an integral number of
hours offset from current UTC. This depends on using Leap Seconds.
The proposal, if implemented, would essentially shift the linkage of
Civil Time from basis 1 to basis 2 for a 1000 years or more.
Apart from the obvious absurdity of believing that any system will
last 1000 years [though I accept that the Julian calendar had a
good run!] I simply see no need for a change. Those who write
software that implements communications protocols should work
just a little harder.
If they don't want this work, then by all means change to a basis 1
time as GPS does but there is no need to drag us all along with them.
I see no compelling reason to mess about with Civil Time as it is
currently organised.
Frank King
Cambridge, U.K.
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