[time-nuts] Exceptions...

Magnus Danielson magnus at rubidium.dyndns.org
Mon Oct 27 09:06:01 UTC 2008


M. Warner Losh wrote:
> In message: <4904A7DA.4000809 at rubidium.dyndns.org>
>             Magnus Danielson <magnus at rubidium.dyndns.org> writes:
> : Lux, James P wrote:
> : > 
> : > 
> : > On 10/26/08 9:45 AM, "Burt I. Weiner" <biwa at att.net> wrote:
> : > 
> : >> Except for the flat or pointy places.
> : >>
> : >> Burt, K6OQK
> : >>
> : >> At 05:00 AM 10/26/2008, time-nuts-request at febo.com wrote
> : >>> At 10:44 PM 10/25/2008, Gretchen Baxter wrote...
> : >>>> I went to http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/
> : >>>>
> : >>>> I saw that it was 10:35 in New York but in Adelaide it was 1:05 PM and
> : >>>> in
> : >>>> New Delhi 8:05.
> : >>>>
> : >>>> How can that be?
> : >>> The world is round.
> : > In the context of time-nuts, where we denigrate mere 1 ppm accuracy and talk
> : > about parts in 1E12 and more.. The Earth, being ellipsoidal by about a part
> : > in 300, is hardly "round".
> : 
> : OK... it's a fairly ellipsoid object... and not flat.
> 
> And the 1/2 time zones have nothing to do with the shape of the earth
> in fine detail, but rather the fact that it is somewhat ball-like in a
> gross, part in 10 sort of way :-)[*]

The hint is rather that since it i roundish, turns around its axis 
timezones as such is needed. Contrary to popular beleif, people do want 
their time to predict the rising, noon and setting of the sun. Thus, all 
countries running UTC would not be a solution. The Indian solution to 
solve for conflicting requirements is certainly a reasnoble solution.

However, there are valid reasons to use UTC throughout the world for 
certain tasks, but those does not necessarilly include civil timekeeping.

Cheers,
Magnus



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