On 04/22/2013 08:22 AM, John Gilmore wrote:
Historically, the distinction between GMT and UTC is that a new GMT
day begins at noon and a new UTC day begins at midnight.
Observational astronomers, who deal in old, even very old observations
routinely, still make this distinction carefully. Others, of course,
do not.
I am not entirely sure what an ivory-tower instruction is, and
STCK[E] may well be one. It is also a convenient, very low-overhead
source of high-resolution date-time values that are unique, and thus a
convenient component of names that must be unique.
John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA
...
That UCT/GMT distinction between the astronomical GMT day-origin was not
present in the civil usage of GMT, and the civil/astronomical GMT
ambiguity seems to have been "officially" ended (at least in England) in
favor of the civil day-begins-at-midnight usage for both contexts on Jan
1, 1925. Supposedly for astronomical GMT time December 31.5 GMT in 1924
became January 1.0 GMT in 1925 . But people being people, there were no
doubt some holdouts that rejected the 1925 astronomical GMT change.
--
Joel C. Ewing, Bentonville, AR [email protected]
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