[time-nuts] Time of death-Again

jimlux jimlux at earthlink.net
Thu Oct 28 13:30:13 UTC 2010


Steve Rooke wrote:
> One thing we should bear in mind that our tombstone timestamp should
> have things like the timezone, and calendar in use, references, such
> that future people can determine the exact point in time of our death.
> In fact, basing the timestamp on some true reference point would
> better than about 2000 years after some event happened on earth as
> archaeologists from other words coming to the Earth in the future
> would be left to figure out this arbitrary time event. I would propose
> that we relate the year portion (which is the LSB and most important)
> to some celestial event thereby making it possible to document this
> easily for future life-forms to determine. The whole year/date thing
> really should be made secular as there is no place for religion in the
> governance of society.
> 
> Steve


Is this not the same problem we all face when specifying an absolute 
time?  Is it TAI? GPS? UTC? etc.

And, then, if you are moving, the local time offsettime  relative to 
some reference might be different at different times.

I think this is a sort of relativity question, isn't it?  That is, you 
just have to pick some place/time, and reference everything else to 
that.  So which astronomical event do you want use as your reference 
(e.g. a T=0 epoch)and is it sufficiently well determined that you can 
figure it out later?  It's all well and good, for instance, to use noon 
on January 1st, 1900 or something as your time zero, but that's hardly a 
universally available reference point.



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