Atomic Time

[philis]

So, should we replace 4 billion years of celestial mechanics with the vibrations of a poxy cesuim atom?

I cant quite get my head round this one, if time was invented to predict the position of the sun in the sky, ie - 12 noon = zenith, then who are we to argue that the sun is wrong and atomic clocks are right?

edit:
As per http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-1554...

Edited by philis on Friday 20th January 14:05

[Hooli]

Silly idea, all those things they claim can't deal with leap seconds manage to deal with them currently. Besides as others have said, time is a reference to where the sun is, so that's what it has to reflect.

[R300will]

leap second = obviously good idea. end of

[Simpo Two]

Or you could move the Greenwich Meridian a little bit west every year...

[tank slapper]

I can see the merits of both sides of that argument, but why not apply the correction at point of use rather than at the reference? Create an independent universal time index that is apart from local time zones, or astronomic corrections (something like the POSIX time index). There would then be a separate localised time correction factor to which leap seconds and time zone corrections could be applied to get a usable display. That way, systems that require an accurate timing signal have one, and people, who aren't quite so fussy, can still have time presented to them in a readable format.

[andy_s]

Maintaining regular time offers nothing in and of itself, in effect it just metronomes out nothing but the decay, with no relevance to earth time. It only becomes relevant when it's attached to the position of the planet.

The biggest drawback of the leap second is that it's a 'nuisance' to readjust GPS, internet and other time dependent systems - well, it may be a nuisance, but that's like saying it's a nuisance that the sun sets earlier in the winter. Typically, it is the French that seem to consistently put the bureaucratic horse before the practicality cart.

[philis]

andy_s said:

it is the French that seem to consistently put the bureaucratic horse before the practicality cart.

Like the sound of that... Just blame the French!

[Simpo Two]

Napoleon got his way in the end; everyone seems to use metres and kilometres now

[Hooli]

Simpo Two said:

Napoleon got his way in the end; everyone seems to use metres and kilometres now

I don't & refuse to because I'm not a frog.

[Krikkit]

Hooli said:

I don't & refuse to because I'm not a frog. too backwards to accept that things change...

FTFY.

I think I like tank slapper's idea best - create an index to run on, it doesn't even need to keep to the usual units for practical purposes, as long as there's an algorithm to convert it back to current time formats etc.