[tz] What's "right"?

Steve Allen sla at ucolick.org
Sun Nov 15 23:55:29 UTC 2020


On Sun 2020-11-15T23:28:29+0000 Michael H Deckers hath writ:
> Commission 31 is quite explicit:

The proofreading of these minutes was distracted by serious issues.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/FEF0CB0CE755B4F67813AEC1E3596DEF/S0251107X0002023Xa.pdf
On page 198 point 9.2 definitely has a typo.

This is not surprising given that the minutes of the first session on
August 19 have had at least one paragraph redacted lest the IAU
proceedings reveal the level of disagreement about leap seconds among
the very same people who had been part of the meetings leading to that
decision.  Winkler, president at that meeting, was co-author (with
Sadler) of one of the reports contributed before the 1970 IAU GA which
said that leap seconds would cause failures in air traffic collision
avoidance systems, and he later published USNO bulletins which
described how the USNO was not going to be using UTC for its systems.

Sadler, also at that meeting, later revealed that the proceedings of
the 4th CCDS meeting for which there is a record are actually the
proceedings of the *second* 4th CCDS meeting.  The *first* 4th CCDS
meeting was stricken from all records, so the redaction of a paragraph
or two at the IAU is mild by comparison.

For fun here is a photo of the IAU excursion from Brighton up to
London on 1970 August 23 -- after the first two contentious sessions of
Comm 31, during the wordsmithing phase that led to the results in the
last two sessions of Comm 31.
https://www.ucolick.org/~sla/temporary/IAU19700823Sadler.jpg
At the right walking toward the camera along the path is
D.H. Sadler, no doubt in contemplation of the draft statement
for the next day where he would ask for a vote about whether
leap seconds really were the "optimum solution".

--
Steve Allen                    <sla at ucolick.org>              WGS-84 (GPS)
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