Talk:Coordinated Universal Time/Archive 1

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Things are getting confusing; we now have article pages for:

Greenwich Mean Time (redirected to UTC)

GMT (redirected to UTC)

UTC

Universal time

Considering:

  • GMT is an obsolete mean solar time, and not equal to UTC.
  • UTC is a special case of Universal Time
  • UTC is based on atomic clocks and only indirectly on the Earth's rotation
  • UTC IS the central timezone for clock time

I propose the following:

  • Redirect GMT to Greenwich Mean Time
  • In the Greenwich Mean Time article, put all the stuff on solar time; refer to UTC
  • Keep UTC, as it belongs to all the other articles for timezones. Describe its use and implementation based on atmic clocks. Just mention GMT, atomic time, leap seconds; but for all technicalities refer to the Universal Time page.
  • In the Universal Time page, describe all the technical differences between the various flavours of UT.

-- Tompeters

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Coordinated Universal Time/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Use of the term "frequency" in this article, although technically correct, is unfortunately adjacent to a reference to shortwave radio:

"In 1956, the U.S. National Bureau of Standards started to use atomic frequency standards in generating the WWV time signals, named for the shortwave radio station which broadcasts them. In a controversial decision, the frequency of the signals was initially set to match the rate of UT, but then kept at the same frequency by the use of atomic clocks and deliberately allowed to drift away from UT."

Suggestion: replace 'frequency' with the term 'tick rate', also used in the article, to clarify the sentence. I.e.,

...generating the WWV time signals, named for the shortwave radio station which broadcasts them. In a controversial decision, the tick rate of the time signals...

--71.10.226.43 (talk) 21:47, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Last edited at 21:48, 24 June 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 20:21, 2 May 2016 (UTC)