Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
|
London Transport (uk.transport.london) Discussion of all forms of transport in London. |
Reply |
|
LinkBack | Thread Tools | Display Modes |
|
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Routemaster lament
On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 19:25:01 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote: In message , at 17:28:52 on Sat, 21 Aug 2004, Peter Sumner remarked: The official time in the UK is maintained by the NPL and it ticks atomic seconds in UTC. This is *a* time that is maintained by the NPL. NPL say http://www.npl.co.uk/time/ "Home of the nation's atomic time scale" and "providing the UK time scale related to UTC ", in both cases its "the" time scale rather than just "a" time. -- Peter Sumner |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Routemaster lament
In message , at 11:32:43 on
Sun, 22 Aug 2004, Peter Sumner remarked: NPL say http://www.npl.co.uk/time/ "Home of the nation's atomic time scale" and "providing the UK time scale related to UTC ", in both cases its "the" time scale rather than just "a" time. But go on to say: "Universal Time (UT) now has three separate definitions (UT0, UT1, UT2) depending on which corrections have been applied to the Earth's motion. Authorities are not agreed on whether GMT equates with UT0 or UT1, however the differences between the two are of the order of thousandths of a second. Meanwhile, they are wrong to imply that UTC is the legally accepted time; unless someone has deliberately "dumbed down", for their Homepage, the choice between UT0/UT1 and called that UTC. -- Roland Perry |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Routemaster lament
On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 20:33:16 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote: In message , at 11:32:43 on Sun, 22 Aug 2004, Peter Sumner remarked: NPL say http://www.npl.co.uk/time/ "Home of the nation's atomic time scale" and "providing the UK time scale related to UTC ", in both cases its "the" time scale rather than just "a" time. But go on to say: "Universal Time (UT) now has three separate definitions (UT0, UT1, UT2) depending on which corrections have been applied to the Earth's motion. Authorities are not agreed on whether GMT equates with UT0 or UT1, however the differences between the two are of the order of thousandths of a second. Meanwhile, they are wrong to imply that UTC is the legally accepted time; unless someone has deliberately "dumbed down", for their Homepage, the choice between UT0/UT1 and called that UTC. Yes, but the difference between the different UTs is not relevant is it. UTC is currently about 500msec away from UT1 and the difference is changing as we speak. UT0 varies from UT1 according to where you are on earth, UT2 and UT1r are smoothed versions of UT1. UTC advances smoothly, a handy feature for measuring intervals - UT does not. UTC is the time we use in the UK, our computers, our clocks and our timetables all use it. Legislation still refers to GMT and this introduces an ambiguity. Does getting to the legal time mean correcting the time shown on the most accurate clocks we have? I can't see any dumbing down on the NPL pages - where do you see this? -- Peter Sumner |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Routemaster lament
In message , at 22:11:13 on
Mon, 23 Aug 2004, Peter Sumner remarked: Meanwhile, they are wrong to imply that UTC is the legally accepted time; unless someone has deliberately "dumbed down", for their Homepage, the choice between UT0/UT1 and called that UTC. Yes, but the difference between the different UTs is not relevant is it. UTC is currently about 500msec away from UT1 and the difference is changing as we speak. UT0 varies from UT1 according to where you are on earth, UT2 and UT1r are smoothed versions of UT1. UTC advances smoothly, a handy feature for measuring intervals - UT does not. UTC is the time we use in the UK, our computers, our clocks and our timetables all use it. Legislation still refers to GMT and this introduces an ambiguity. Does getting to the legal time mean correcting the time shown on the most accurate clocks we have? Yes, unfortunately. Thankfully, there are few *legal* reasons for knowing the time that require high precision. As this is uk.transport, one could refer to the "10 minutes" by which trains are officially counted as late as an example. I can't see any dumbing down on the NPL pages - where do you see this? Well, if you don't believe that their use of "UTC", as discussed, on their home page is "dumbing down", then it's simply a mistake. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt, ymmv. The obvious thing for them to do is to briefly discuss the tensions between the law, UT1, their clocks and UTC. -- Roland Perry |
Reply |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Routemaster lament | London Transport | |||
Routemaster lament | London Transport | |||
Routemaster lament | London Transport | |||
Routemaster lament | London Transport | |||
A Commuter's Lament | London Transport |