zone time in U.S. now based on UTC

A few days ago the President signed legislation which, among
other things, amended existing law to define the U.S. time zones in
terms of UTC instead of mean solar time.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill...bill=h110-2272
(search for STANDARD TIME -- it's about 1/4 of the way down the
document)

But there is provision for a U.S. version of UTC: "In this section,
the term 'Coordinated Universal Time' means the time scale maintained
through the General Conference of Weights and Measures and interpreted
or modified for the United States by the Secretary of Commerce in
coordination with the Secretary of the Navy."


This legislation also modifies an 1866 law which authorized the metric
system. That part appears to be just an update on the exact meaning of
"the metric system of measurement".

--
Paul Hirose
To reply by email remove INVALID

"Paul Hirose" writes:
| A few days ago the President signed legislation which, among
| other things, amended existing law to define the U.S. time zones in
| terms of UTC instead of mean solar time.
|
| http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill...bill=h110-2272
| (search for STANDARD TIME -- it's about 1/4 of the way down the
| document)

A curious move for a government that is otherwise notorious
for utmost paranoia concerning the slightest suggestion of
handing over aspects of sovereignty to an international
organization ...

Is this move perhaps a prelude to the next phase in the ongoing
campaign to abolish leap seconds and thereby fully decouple UTC
from mean solar time (and UT)?

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/time/leap/

It is certainly easily possible to legally link a national time zone
to UTC without giving up the strong binding to mean solar time.
All that is needed is listing a few crucial properties of the definition
of UTC in the respective law. The German Time Act (1978) demonstrates
this nicely in section 1 paragraph 3 item 3:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/time/zeitgesetz.en.html

Law on the definition of time (Zeitgesetz -- ZeitG)

Section 1 Legal time

(1) In official and business communication, date and time are
used according to legal time.

(2) Legal time is Central European Time. It is defined as
Coordinated Universal Time plus one hour.

(3) Coordinated Universal Time is defined as a time scale with
the following properties:

1. On 1 January 1972, 0 hours, it corresponds to
31 December 1971, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59.96 seconds
mean solar time on the null meridian.
2. The scale unit is the base unit second according to
section 3 paragraph 4 of the law on units of measurement [...],
at sea level.
3. The time scale Coordinated Universal Time is kept in
alignment with mean solar time at the null meridian with
a tolerance of not more than one second, either by inserting
one additional second or by omitting one second.

(4) While in force, Central European Summer Time is legal time. It is
defined as Coordinated Universal Time plus two hours.

Markus

--
Markus Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ || CB3 0FD, Great Britain

On Aug 19, 7:53 pm, (Markus Kuhn) wrote:
"Paul Hirose" writes:

| A few days ago the President signed legislation which, among
| other things, amended existing law to define the U.S. time zones in
| terms of UTC instead of mean solar time.
|
|http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill...bill=h110-2272
| (search for STANDARD TIME -- it's about 1/4 of the way down the
| document)

A curious move for a government that is otherwise notorious
for utmost paranoia concerning the slightest suggestion of
handing over aspects of sovereignty to an international
organization ...

Is this move perhaps a prelude to the next phase in the ongoing
campaign to abolish leap seconds and thereby fully decouple UTC
from mean solar time (and UT)?

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/time/leap/

It is certainly easily possible to legally link a national time zone
to UTC without giving up the strong binding to mean solar time.
All that is needed is listing a few crucial properties of the definition
of UTC in the respective law. The German Time Act (1978) demonstrates
this nicely in section 1 paragraph 3 item 3:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/time/zeitgesetz.en.html

Law on the definition of time (Zeitgesetz -- ZeitG)

Section 1 Legal time

(1) In official and business communication, date and time are
used according to legal time.

(2) Legal time is Central European Time. It is defined as
Coordinated Universal Time plus one hour.

(3) Coordinated Universal Time is defined as a time scale with
the following properties:

1. On 1 January 1972, 0 hours, it corresponds to
31 December 1971, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59.96 seconds
mean solar time on the null meridian.
2. The scale unit is the base unit second according to
section 3 paragraph 4 of the law on units of measurement [...],
at sea level.
3. The time scale Coordinated Universal Time is kept in
alignment with mean solar time at the null meridian with
a tolerance of not more than one second, either by inserting
one additional second or by omitting one second.

(4) While in force, Central European Summer Time is legal time. It is
defined as Coordinated Universal Time plus two hours.

Markus

--
Markus Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridgehttp://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/|| CB3 0FD, Great Britain

From the website -

"Leap seconds were introduced in 1971 to reconcile astronomical time,
which is based on the rotation on the Earth, and physical time, which
can be measured with amazing accuracy using atomic clocks"

Astronomical time is not and never was based on the rotation of the
Earth,it was derived from equalising the natural daily cycles to a 24
hour cycle and more importantly allows each of these human devised 24
hour cycles to elapse into each other.

'To reduce Watches to the right measure of dayes, or to know how much
they goe too fast or too slow in 24. hours.'

" Here take notice, that the Sun or the Earth passeth the 12.
Signes, or makes an entire revolution in the Ecliptick in 365 days, 5
hours 49 min. or there about, and that those days, reckon'd from noon
to noon, are of different lenghts; as is known to all that are vers'd
in Astronomy. Now between the longest and the shortest of those days,
a day may be taken of such a length, as 365 such days, 5. hours &c.
(the same numbers as before) make up, or are equall to that
revolution: And this is call'd the Equal or Mean day, according to
which the Watches are to be set; and therefore the Hour or Minute
shew'd by the Watches, though they be perfectly Iust and equal, must
needs differ almost continually from those that are shew'd by the Sun,
or are reckon'd according to its Motion. But this Difference is
regular, and is otherwise call'd the Aequation,. " Huygens

http://www.xs4all.nl/~adcs/Huygens/06/kort-E.html

The transfer of the average or mean 24 hour to terrestrial longitudes
where 4 minutes of clock time correspond to 1 degree of geographical
seperation never required a direct link with axial rotation,it simply
states that clocks are kept in sync with the axial cycle at 24 hours/
360 degrees via the Equation of Time correction and that equivalency
has not and cannot change.Any person can verify that today there will
be 86 400 seconds in Sunday followed by the same amount on Monday.

The leap second idiocy is based upon the idea that clocks allied with
an external reference can determine the axial and orbital motion of
the Earth.In short,whatever nameless and faceless people who try to
modify very old and very distinguished,do you hear,very distinguished
principles devised by brilliant men are basing their judgements on the
faulty reasoning of Flamsteed back in the 17th century.As a star
returns to a location in 23 hours 56 minutes 04 seconds of a 24 hour
day,it requires a calendar system to work,in other words 3 years of
365 days and 1 year of 366 days and this 'leap second' nonsense is an
outrigger of this foolish thinking.

The human devised principle of the 24 hour daily cycle has to be the
most lovable and most practical human creations ever yet is the least
understood. or rather is jettisoned for the weakest type of reasoning
possible.I would have expected that at least one person could openly
admire the system where the mean 24 hour day was transfered to the
axial cycle and terrestrial longitudes by treating axial rotation as
constant but unfortunately it seems many are running in the opposite
and dismal direction.

On Aug 19, 11:53 am, (Markus Kuhn) wrote:
Is this move perhaps a prelude to the next phase in the ongoing
campaign to abolish leap seconds and thereby fully decouple UTC
from mean solar time (and UT)?

Not according to one who was working on putting the language into the
bills over the past few years. On the other hand, that one was
completely unaware of the fact that leap seconds and POSIX give system
implementors grief.
That could be plausible deniability, but unless proven so would be
much more simply explained by the need for a lot more pedagogy on the
subject of leap seconds.

On Aug 20, 12:09 am, wrote:
On Aug 19, 11:53 am, (Markus Kuhn) wrote:

Is this move perhaps a prelude to the next phase in the ongoing
campaign to abolish leap seconds and thereby fully decouple UTC
from mean solar time (and UT)?

Not according to one who was working on putting the language into the
bills over the past few years. On the other hand, that one was
completely unaware of the fact that leap seconds and POSIX give system
implementors grief.
That could be plausible deniability, but unless proven so would be
much more simply explained by the need for a lot more pedagogy on the
subject of leap seconds.

The whole spectre of 'leap seconds' is the product of destructive
thinking which can be traced to a single sourse -

"... our clocks kept so good a correspondence with the Heavens that I
doubt it not but they would prove the revolutions of the Earth to be
isochronical... " John Flamsteed

The difference between the daily noon cycle and tyhe 24 hour clock
cycle absolutely excludes the idea that an external reference such as
the return of a star to a meridian can be used to determine the axial
rotation of the Earth,'leap seconds' are ,of course,derived from the
false principle introduced centuries ago.Simply dropping any reference
to the distant stars in respect to the 24 hour day,clocks and the
daily cycle is enough to abolish the destructive reasoning introduced
by Flamsteed.

What person here cannot reason how the 24 hours of Monday elapse into
the 24 hours of Tuesday as a product of the Equation of Time system
which in itself is one of humanity's greatest achievements.As the
variations in length of the noon cycle was recognised millenia ago,why
should it be so difficult for contemporaries to recognise that the
Equation of Time correction acts like a daily 'leap' correction to
keep the 24 hour cycle fixed to natural noon just as Huygen's treatise
explicitly states ? -

http://www.xs4all.nl/~adcs/Huygens/06/kort-E.html

Why the burning desire to stick with a correlation which ties axial
and orbital motion to the return of a star to a meridian by believing
that the noon cycle is 24 hours exactly in order to shove the 3
minutes 56 seconds difference in the return of a star into the
orbital motion of the Earth ? -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereal_time

What can be said of the 'higher' institutions which knowingly support
the astrological core of the 'sidereal day' principles which have no
basis in observation and for a crowd that talks about physiucal
evidence as the only evidence that matters ,to believe in a physically
observed 24 hour cycle is the lowest level to which astronomers or any
individual in the matter can fall.

Who will be the first to bring this serious matter out in the open ?.I
assure them that humanity will be entirely relieved and indeed
thrilled to discover the great principles which create the 24 hour
day,the calendar system and the later developments such as the
correelation between clocks and terrestrial longitudes at 4 minutes
for each degree of geographical seperation.A complete seperation is
required to break the astrological stranglehold introduced unwittingly
by the substandard reasoning of Flamsteed and no attempt is made to
conceal the error which tries to fit 4 annual orbital cycles of the
Earth into a calendar system made up of 3 years of 365 days and 1 year
of 366 days.

On Aug 20, 4:43 am, oriel36 wrote:
---snip---

Who will be the first to bring this serious matter out in the open ?.I
assure them that humanity will be entirely relieved and indeed
thrilled to discover the great principles which create the 24 hour
day,the calendar system and the later developments such as the
correelation between clocks and terrestrial longitudes at 4 minutes
for each degree of geographical seperation.A complete seperation is
required to break the astrological stranglehold introduced unwittingly
by the substandard reasoning of Flamsteed and no attempt is made to
conceal the error which tries to fit 4 annual orbital cycles of the
Earth into a calendar system made up of 3 years of 365 days and 1 year
of 366 days.

Hi
The real problem is that time has many purposes. Keeping track of
that period called the day is only the simplest of these purposes.
The Earth is slowing down and when people first started using time
for purposes other than keeping track of when to go to work, they
came on this problem.
Many of the other purposes of time require that it does no vary
relative
to the rest of the physical phenomena that seems to have more long
term stability than the rotation of the Earth.
Bickering over errors made by earlier people such as Flamsteed
serve no useful purposes.
Get over it.
Dwight

I apologise insofar as I have to pretend that you know what you are
talking about.

On Aug 20, 6:01 pm, wrote:
On Aug 20, 4:43 am, oriel36 wrote:
---snip---



Who will be the first to bring this serious matter out in the open ?.I
assure them that humanity will be entirely relieved and indeed
thrilled to discover the great principles which create the 24 hour
day,the calendar system and the later developments such as the
correelation between clocks and terrestrial longitudes at 4 minutes
for each degree of geographical seperation.A complete seperation is
required to break the astrological stranglehold introduced unwittingly
by the substandard reasoning of Flamsteed and no attempt is made to
conceal the error which tries to fit 4 annual orbital cycles of the
Earth into a calendar system made up of 3 years of 365 days and 1 year
of 366 days.

Hi
The real problem is that time has many purposes. Keeping track of
that period called the day is only the simplest of these purposes.

The equal or mean 24 hour day represents a standard pace which
timekeeping astronomers developed to allow one noon cycle to mesh with
the next noon cycle,in short,the 24 hour day and subsequently equable
hours,minutes,seconds or smaller division are a human creation by
virtue of the face that the natural noon cycle is unequal -

"...and that those days, reckon'd from noon to noon, are of different
lenghts; as is known to all that are vers'd in Astronomy. " Huygens

For some unknown and hard to fathom reason,you jokers have decided to
go along with an idea that the noon cycle is 24 hours in order to
justify why a star returns to a meridian in 23 hours 56 minutes 04
seconds and from their to this idiotic notion of 'leap seconds' tied
to axial rotation.



The Earth is slowing down and when people first started using time
for purposes other than keeping track of when to go to work, they
came on this problem.

Is there some mass indoctrination that renders really distinguished
principles such as the creation of the 24 hour day into rubbish like
that statement.It must be something else to convince yourself of a
cult belief such as this when the actual treatise which determines how
to use clocks,terrestrial longitudes and the daily cycle as a 24 hour/
360 degree equivalency based on 4 minutes for each degree of
geographical seperation -

http://www.xs4all.nl/~adcs/Huygens/06/kort-E.html

Obviously nobody has any intention of reading that sublime
astronomical work which is the first real time the heliocentric
adaption of the Equation of Time system to terrestrial longitudes is
laid out in such a wonderful and easy to understand way.




Many of the other purposes of time require that it does no vary
relative
to the rest of the physical phenomena that seems to have more long
term stability than the rotation of the Earth.

The joke is on you sunshine,when the heliocentric astronomers such as
Huygens overlaid the Equation of Time system for the purpose of
determining geographical location on Earth via terrestrial
longitudes,they never required the standard pace of the hours,minutes
and seconds be linked directly to the Earth's rotation.The transfer of
the human devised equable 24 hour day to the daily cycle remains just
a convenient principle,the average 24 hour day just transfered to a
constant axial cycle and no external reference is required ,that is
what makes the system so stable for century after century.


Bickering over errors made by earlier people such as Flamsteed
serve no useful purposes.
Get over it.
Dwight

Who is bickering,very foolish people believe that they can justify the
motions of the Earth through the return of a star to a meridian in 23
hours 56 minutes 04 seconds or rather,state that they link axial
rotation directly to that value -


'Period Of Rotation'
"The actual value is 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds. This is the
length of a "sidereal" day. It is the actual time it takes the Earth
to rotate 360 degrees. The term "sidereal" (pronounced sigh-dear'-
real) refers to the rotation of the Earth being measured relative to
the stars. There ARE 24 hours in a "solar day". This is the time it
takes from one noon (sun overhead) to the next noon. The difference in
the two "days" arises from the fact that during a day the Earth also
travels nearly a degree further on its yearly trek around the Sun."

http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy...ch/period.html

Maybe I should remind you of the words of Huygens in contrast to the
dumb,and prevelent ,statement from Nasa before you dare respond -

"...and that those days, reckon'd from noon to noon, are of different
lenghts; as is known to all that are vers'd in Astronomy. " Huygens

There is nothing remotely close to the tragedy which began with a
terrible mistake by Flamsteed,passed through the awful agenda of
Newton and the exotic 20th century concepts and now surfaces as 'leap
seconds'.Thankfully the error is now out in the open with genuine
astronomer capable of seeing how their ancestors,both structural and
timekeeping,developed the clock system in tandem with the axial cycle
and terrestrial longitudes.Children can now easily admire how the
principle which keeps one 24 hour day rolling into the next is used as
the basis for 1 degree of geographical seperation for every 4 minutes
of clock time,,a principle that has not changed from the original
pendulum clocks of Huygens through John Harrison's great chronometers
to the GPS system.

Get over it indeed ! ,that luxury is not yours for it truly belongs to
the distinguished and careful astronomers.

Paul Hirose skribis:

A few days ago the President signed legislation which, among
other things, amended existing law to define the U.S. time zones in
terms of UTC instead of mean solar time.

Okay, so we're finally getting in step with the rest of the civilized
world. This is a good thing. Next, we may remove all of the laws
that prevent people from fully implementing the metric system. That
will be a good thing, too.

--
Stefano
\\|||// No matter where you go,
(@ @) there you are.
__________oooO_(_)_Oooo___________________________ ___
|___|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_____ __|
|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_ __|
|___|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_____ __|
|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_ __|
But your luggage is in Myrtle Point, Oregon

On Aug 20, 7:32 pm, Stefano MacGregor wrote:
Paul Hirose skribis:

A few days ago the President signed legislation which, among
other things, amended existing law to define the U.S. time zones in
terms of UTC instead of mean solar time.

Okay, so we're finally getting in step with the rest of the civilized
world. This is a good thing. Next, we may remove all of the laws
that prevent people from fully implementing the metric system. That
will be a good thing, too.

--
Stefano
\\|||// No matter where you go,
(@ @) there you are.
__________oooO_(_)_Oooo___________________________ ___
|___|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_____ __|
|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_ __|
|___|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_____ __|
|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_ __|
But your luggage is in Myrtle Point, Oregon

Dismay has been expressed by many at the new tactic which dumps
meaningless posts into sci.astro.amateur but judging by your dismal
and dull response,like one among many of the same,there is nothing
reasonably intelligent in any responses.It is not that men are
unintelligent,it just shows that they can be molded into believing
doctrines which by nature are ridiculous and counter-productive.

I think sci.astro.amateur is getting what it finally deserves.

delet

--
There are those who believe that life here, began out there, far across the
universe, with tribes of humans, who may have been the forefathers of the
Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. Some believe that they may yet be
brothers of man, who even now fight to survive, somewhere beyond the
heavens.


The Lone Sidewalk Astronomer of Rosamond
Telescope Buyers FAQ
http://home.inreach.com/starlord
Sidewalk Astronomy
www.sidewalkastronomy.info
The Church of Eternity
http://home.inreach.com/starlord/church/Eternity.html
AD World
http://www.adworld.netfirms.com/


"Stefano MacGregor" wrote in message
ps.com...
Paul Hirose skribis:

A few days ago the President signed legislation which, among
other things, amended existing law to define the U.S. time zones in
terms of UTC instead of mean solar time.

Okay, so we're finally getting in step with the rest of the civilized
world. This is a good thing. Next, we may remove all of the laws
that prevent people from fully implementing the metric system. That
will be a good thing, too.

--
Stefano
\\|||// No matter where you go,
(@ @) there you are.
__________oooO_(_)_Oooo___________________________ ___
|___|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_____ __|
|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_ __|
|___|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_____ __|
|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_ __|
But your luggage is in Myrtle Point, Oregon