time since the epoch

[Gregory Wright]

On Thursday, February 6, 2003, at 12:47 PM, Matt Hellige wrote:

> [Keith Wansbrough <Keith.Wansbrough@cl.cam.ac.uk>]
>> Stefan Karrmann <sk@mathematik.uni-ulm.de> writes:
>>
>>> A sound base for a Time implementation should use TAI (temps atomique
>>> international), c.f. <http://cr.yp.to/libtai.html>.
>>
>> I disagree; I think UTC is quite sufficient, and will match the users'
>> expectations much better.  (executive summary: UTC is the time on your
>> watch (+/- timezone of course), TAI is behind by a few seconds, and
>> this difference changes each time there's a new leap second).
>>
>> However, the reference above is not to TAI, but to a library called
>> libtai.  I don't know anything about this; Stefan, maybe you could
>> tell us some more?
>>
>
> I know it's not really on topic, but for those of us who are ignorant
> of the details of time standards, does anyone have a pointer to a
> decent conceptual (i.e., non-software specific) overview of the
> subject? Leap seconds, etc., are all pretty much new to me, but I am
> curious.
>

The standard (and remarkably readable) reference is The Explanatory
Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac, P. K. Seidelmann (ed.), 1992.

It covers the basics of time measurement and calendrical calculations,
among many other topics.


Greg


> Matt
>
> -- 
> Matt Hellige                  matt@immute.net
> http://matt.immute.net
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