[time-nuts] International time meridian

[Tony Finch]

On Sun, 14 Jan 2007, Bill Hawkins wrote:
>
> Some time ago, I got it into my head that GMT was obsolete
> and that the time meridian went through Paris, not Greenwich.

The Greenwich meridian is still nominally the prime meridian, and GMT is
still nominally British standard time. However they aren't the same as
they were at the time of the 1884 meridian conference. The old Greenwich
meridian does not match the WGS84 prime meridian (used by GPS etc.), and
UT1 isn't defined the same way that GMT was. Despite what our legislation
says, we actually use UTC for standard time in Britain.

The last three paragraphs of http://fanf.livejournal.com/70049.html are
particularly relevant.

Tony.
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