Tuesday, June 30, 2015

The Goods To Wit Ness~T



Sew this Thread with Revelations and Gosh Darn we have An apocalyptic Moment,
the leap a second on the Worlds Swerve horses and the for Value of Shows!!

That is the Back to Basics on the Firm of My Thug as that is a Good Term to State,
in that a Gulf or is it Golf or is it Ditch to the String along A Nations Car throng.

Big Ole Under Ware to the Up on the Hire Row Glyphs' that Shale to the Sheets,
what a Tong on the Chi to the dough of Wall Streets lash!!

Dunkin' Donuts that Corner of Wind Chills is the Compass of the barter to Spit,
that Jump of the Three Day Eventer to liken a Scope owe the Catholic & laugh!!

Dare the devil and the Saudi will Sheikh to that it is Oblivion on the Mimics on Earth,
toil the people of this In Car Nation and bravo that Piston to an engined!!

Smoke sounds like Fax and the Orgon is Giant to Tune of the Razor ink Shave,
short stub bull to that Stadium of sports Whom is the per chaise And whom gots the Milk!!

I hear that on the Cable cars on the Rice A roni is a Horn to Alcatraz the Rock!!

Be grain to the Swipe as dry Up on Muds that reader on the Seer is of NOW,
not the edge of tomorrow for that would be the waist of a News Reel gone Real!!

Buy Supper for the Burk Ka and travel on the Belt for I will Muster difference to this shown,
flags that are strung to the Current Media is the Timely action or Ables on the Sum,
is that KAP it Toll for the Bridge of Sanctions this is the Envelope of a Greater Resistance,
the AC/DC that Jag of Nero broth,
Fire in the Brimstone as that is a Balanced said I spook the Worlds loosed.

While CBS and NBC goes ABC for distractions,
the War on that is the dead at dead is dead as dead on dead to dead to Sport a pharma,
the suit a Call on snow day is that labor day of quirk,
the Penny on that is the Mill a belly Croup,
cough to the Vernacular and Ride the Shed a Tool,
bridles know that Bits are also said to Lets.



The Chronicle of The Horse And The Legacy So Historic That Now The World & Ewe Can Enjoy A Good Game or Golf



The vision for Hamilton Farm began in 1911, when James Cox Brady decided to create an English country estate in the green fields and woodlands of the Somerset Hills. At its zenith, Brady’s estate, bearing his wife’s family name, spread across five thousand acres, encompassing pastures, woods, horse trails and formal gardens. The farm produced its own food and prize winning livestock. A magnificent fifty-stall equestrian stable, the largest and most lavish of its kind at the time of its construction in 1916, housed a variety of breeds, from Hackney ponies and hunters to Clydesdale and Percheron draft horses. In 1921, the original main house burned. Brady rebuilt on its foundation a Georgian brick mansion with sixty-four rooms, eleven fireplaces, two elevators and a chapel with stained-glass windows and an organ. During World War II, Brady’s widow directed the conversion of the stables and carriage house into an emergency hospital and rest center for Merchant Marine seamen, the first such facility constructed in the United States during wartime. The stables were eventually returned to their original purpose and now serve as headquarters for the United States Equestrian Team, which uses Hamilton Farm as its training ground for the Olympic Games.


The Beneficial Corporation contracted to purchase the property from the Brady family in 1978. The closing was marred by yet another fire which destroyed the mansion. Beneficial Corporation continued with the purchase, and contracted with designer Percy Leach to restore the mansion to its’ grandeur. The property was used as a retreat and conference center. In 1998, Lucent Technologies purchased the property with the concept of developing an ultra exclusive golf club with eighteen corporate members. Dr. Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry, nationally known golf course architects, were hired to construct the finest golf facility in the country. Two courses were built, an eighteen hole championship course, and a challenging par three, which became the only USGA rated par three in the country. In addition, the design included eighteen cottages on the Par three Hickory course, one for each of the members. Over $50 million was invested in bringing the dream of luxury golf entertaining to fruition.


In 2001, as the economy waned, so did Lucent’s interest in the property. In June of that year, Townsend Capital, LLC, took over and promptly converted the club into a private, invitation only club. The vision of the club remained the same, however. Townsend Capital set forth to create the finest golf experience one could enjoy. The mansion continues to host exquisite dining and entertaining, and the golf courses are raved as the finest to be played.
http://www.hamiltonfarmgolfclub.com/Default.aspx?p=DynamicModule&pageid=362955&ssid=272764&vnf=1



June 14, 2011

100 Years At Hamilton Farm: A Glimpse At Gladstone Through The Ages

Imagine waking up in the dorms of the U.S. Equestrian Team’s Gladstone, N.J., headquarters in the 1960s. In the room next door is your teammate, Frank Chapot, a legend in the making. Waiting for you in the aisle way of the adjacent barn is your coach, the venerable Bertalan de Némethy, eager to steal your stirrups away.
The horses have already been fed in varnished stalls appointed with brass fittings—Snowbound, San Lucas and others who’ve been furnished to the team by the USET. The most obvious next step is to saddle up and train. It’s time to get moving. This is your academy.

Hamilton Farm, Gladstone, N.J., has been headquarters to the USET since 1961, but its history spans back another 50 years. In 1911, James Cox Brady, a Wall Street financier and heir to his father’s utility fortune, bought a 180-acre parcel of land alongside the farm of fellow Essex Fox Hounds member and pharmaceutical magnate Charles Pfizer. Over the next few years, Brady’s enthusiasm for the country life grew, leading him to amass upwards of 5,000 acres across Hunterdon, Morris and Somerset counties. On a clear day, he was said to have had a view of the Hudson River from the windows of his 64-room Gregorian mansion.

From its inception, Hamilton Farm was home to cattle, chickens, ducks, geese, pigs and sheep, but Brady prided himself on his prized breeding stock, including champion Hackney stallion Hamilton Model and influential Shetland stallion King Larigo. Clydesdales, Percherons and a string of racehorses rounded out the herd, and Brady had grand visions for the regal barn he’d build for them.

Palace Of Dual Purposes

Tommy Smith riding out on Jay Trump in his All-American outfit that was the talk of the English gallops. Photo by McClary

By 1917, construction was complete on the most palatial stable of the era: a two-story structure in which tiled walls and terrazzo floors lined carriage, harness, tack and trophy rooms, living quarters, offices and an ornate rotunda entryway. Fifty-four stalls on two levels were floored with cord brick and barred with wrought iron, and accents of stained glass, oak and pine were found throughout the building.

By the early 1920s, Brady’s farm was flourishing. The Essex Fox Hounds regularly rode out from Hamilton, jovially partaking of pre-hunt stirrup cups in the stable’s gravel courtyard. But at the height of ascendency, fate intervened: In 1927, Brady came down with pneumonia and died shortly thereafter. His third wife, Helen McMahon Brady, was not the enthusiastic farmer her husband had been and sold off most of the livestock after his death.

But with the outbreak of World War II, a new purpose was in store for Hamilton. Uninterested in maintaining the stable herself, Helen offered the use of the facility to the government and financed its conversion into an emergency hospital for injured U.S. merchant marines. The harness rooms were changed into an operating suite, the hayloft became a recreational shuffleboard court, and the farm itself was dubbed “Hamilton Farm Hospital Base No. 1.” Throughout the course of the war, thousands of marines were treated at Hamilton before hospital operations ceased in 1947.

After the war, Harden Crawford, granddaughter of James Cox Brady, decided to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps by enlisting Brady’s former groom, Ted Williams, to teach her to drive a carriage. Crawford scraped up the hospital’s linoleum flooring, returned the stable to its former grandeur and earned a few driving ribbons along the way—but it was Williams who provided the vital link between Hamilton’s equestrian past and future.

A Stable Renewed

*In the Aug. 31, 1962 issue, there was a report on the Inverness Two-Day Event in California. The event was described as a "prepatory meet designed to prepare horses and riders pointing toward the Wofford Cup trials at Pebble Beach." The report included this amazing photo of the water jump, taken by Tony Vacek and captioned simply "Ernest Simard II on Paddy Boals at one of the obstacles in the cross-country"...

By 1950, the mounted cavalry of the U.S. Army—the original governing body for Olympic equestrian teams—had been absorbed and disbanded by armored divisions. The Army’s relinquished control of equestrian sports precipitated the formation of the USET, and by 1961, Whitney Stone, then-president of the 10-year-old organization, approached Williams, a fellow horseman, to discuss the establishment of a base for his itinerant team. Through Williams, an agreement was struck to lease the stable and surrounding acreage to the USET, initiating a new era of organization and teamwork.

The 1960s were heydays at Hamilton Farm. Bertalan De Némethy, a Hungarian cavalry officer and coach of the U.S. show jumping team since 1955, ushered in a program of strict training and discipline, drilling riders on the lunge without stirrups or reins. Under de Némethy’s eye, legendary riders like Frank Chapot, Joe Fargis, Kathy Kusner and William Steinkraus bunked at Hamilton and competed horses that were provided by the USET. In 1968, during de Némethy’s reign, Steinkraus won individual gold at the Mexico City Olympic Games.

Though the USET’s provision of horses to team riders was eventually phased out and specialized selection of individual riders and horses became the norm, the U.S. teams continued to train at Hamilton under the formidable guidance of coaches like Chrystine Jones Tauber and Jack Le Goff.

Modern Headquarters

In 1978, the Beneficial Management Company bought 500 acres of Hamilton Farm, including the stable and training facilities. For 10 years, the USET continued to lease the facilities, but in 1988 Beneficial Management donated the stable and surrounding acreage to the team, guaranteeing a permanent home base. Portions of the stable had already been converted into offices for the daily management of high-level equestrian sport, while some 500 acres adjoining the facility were developed into the present-day Hamilton Farm Golf Club.

In 2003, the USET merged with USA Equestrian to create the U.S. Equestrian Federation, the current governing body for the equestrian disciplines of dressage, eventing, jumping, driving, endurance, reining, para equestrian and vaulting. At the same time, the USET Foundation was established to raise the necessary funds for High Performance athletes to compete in international competition. The USET Foundation is still headquartered at Hamilton today.

The farm underwent renovations in 2010, including complete re-footing of the competition arena that had hosted numerous clinics and competitions over the years, including the Festival of Champions, the Talent Search—East, George Morris’ Horsemastership Training Sessions and Pony Club rallies. Prior to the 2010 Alltech World Equestrian Games, the U.S. dressage team continued a tradition begun by their early-USET predecessors by holding their final training sessions at Hamilton and departing directly from Gladstone for Kentucky.

Visitors to modern-day Hamilton Farm encounter historical plaques and black-and-white photos lining the walls of the stable’s rotunda entryway. The trophy room boasts display cases depicting the history of the USET, while the second-floor Whitney Stone Library, with its tables, chairs and a large projection screen, is used for meetings and presentations by several equestrian organizations.

The facility is open to visitors and available to rent for social events and galas, and on the off chance that you encounter a rider schooling in the ring, you’ll be looking on a legacy begun by James Cox Brady some 100 years ago. Over the course of those 100 years, Hamilton Farm has hosted huntsmen, horsemen, marines and a foundation. Who can say what the next 100 years will bring?



As a youngster, Chronicle of the Horse staffer Abby Gibbon was mystified by a black-and-white photo of her grandfather competing in a jumper class in the 1960s. He wasn’t wearing a helmet! His saddle pad was non-existent! The wall he was jumping looked like it would knock you down, too, if you happened to knock it! In the past 50 years, the world of equestrianism has evolved, but one thing is still for certain: History is something we all share as horse enthusiasts, and we’ve got to explore it to learn from it. Armed with nearly 75 years of Chronicle archives, Abby plans to unearth articles we haven’t examined for too many years, shedding light on how far we’ve come – and how far we still have to go – as modern horsemen.
Have ideas for historical topics? Questions or curiosities? Please e-mail Abby – she’d love to hear from you!

*

The Meed Dee Awe



Would it not be the odd EST scene shall the Beach regard the Language as Natural to the Stars,
leading on the Face of Earth for an Understanding that Braved the Cost at priced so Hi,
as the Fact on Globe is of Sell Denial I can All Waves to the Most Incredible balance of a Seat!!



This long And great Breadth is of cadence and deep Character to the Channel of a Ocean,
this is the Truth on the Stage of an Opera of Say that in that is the Junk on a slow boat to China.



Touch the Love and realize that Africa has Held to the education of Zulu as a College degree,
the Feat on the Stadium of comprehending the Mountain!!



A valley of Moons is the Stead of a Tibetan trough to back that purpose with a latitude and Strength,
the Saudi's on there checking of teeth at the bought Sport of People to Sport the World with Sport,
so Old that was I heard on Bryant Gumbels' HBO Show,
the honest the Just and a Man full to the Brim with an Execution of bringing latter day Rein!!


As the Trust is of Well Familiar with Text and Bravery it provisions Know Term,
for that is the best of the best Knight bringing a Flavor to the Media minus the lie,
to be of the Vice that does NOT glass Ceiling but provides a barrel of Interest with no rot.



In the Days of Matters it is the Shoulders of Whom has and IS producing the Information,
to that I say Thanks.



The World Clock & Defining A Leap Second

Current UTC, Time Zone (Coordinated Universal Time)

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/timezone/utc


Universal Time Coordinated / Universal Coordinated Time
Military name: “Zulu” Military Time
Longitude: 0° (Prime Meridian)
At sea: Longitudes between 7.5° West and 7.5° East
leap second will be added on June 30, 2015 at 11:59:60 PM local UTC time.

Scientists Adding 'Leap Second' To World Clock This June 30

By Ted Ranosa, Tech Times | May 20, 8:52 AM

*Officials from the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems (IERS) have announced that an additional second will be implemented on June 30 to reflect an inconsistency between the atomic clock and the rotation of the Earth.
The agency said the extra second, or leap second, is needed because the Earth has slowed in its rotation, making the adjustment in time necessary. Leap seconds are often added during the months of June or December.
According to the IERS, there have been 25 cases since 1972 where a leap second was added.
The leap second this year will be added once the world clock reaches midnight universal time. This change will take effect at 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) for people living in the United States.
Clocks from all over the world synchronized to the standard civil time will show the additional second as ":60."
The planned implementation of the leap second has caused concern among different Internet companies because some computer programs are not designed to accommodate the additional second. These companies fear that the change might potentially create problems with their systems.
In order to avoid issues with the leap second, Amazon Web Services said it will launch "alternative solutions." The company plans to adjust its AWS clocks for a short period, which would reflect a different time compared to the standard civil time.
In 2012, the IERS implemented a leap second, which caused problems for a number of computer software. Several websites, such as LinkedIn, Yelp, StumbleUpon and Reddit, were brought down because they were not able to handle the change.
Qantas Airways' computer system was shut down for hours, leaving airline employees manually checking in passengers.
Problems with the additional second occur because most computer systems operate based on a program called Unix. This software was developed in 1970, two years before leap seconds were created.
Computers synchronize their time according to the IERS' network to make sure they are updated. When leap seconds are added, however, the IERS network informs computers that the last minute of the day will have 61 seconds. This confuses the programming of computers based on Unix.
To fix this issue, Google has developed safety measures after several of its systems were affected by the leap second added in 2005.
The company's "workarounds" involve adding a couple of milliseconds to the clocks of its  servers, enough to handle the additional second.
*http://www.techtimes.com/articles/54217/20150520/scientists-adding-leap-second-to-world-clock-this-june-30.htm


Coordinated Universal Time


Coordinated Universal Time (Frenchtemps universel coordonné), abbreviated as UTC, is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is, within about 1 second, mean solar time at 0° longitude;[1] it does not observe daylight saving time. It is one of several closely related successors to Greenwich Mean Time(GMT). For most purposes, UTC is considered interchangeable with GMT, but GMT is no longer precisely defined by the scientific community.
UTC was officially formalized in 1960 by the International Radio Consultative Committee in Recommendation 374,[2] having been initiated by several national time laboratories. The system was adjusted several times until leap seconds were adopted in 1972 to simplify future adjustments. A number of proposals have been made to replace UTC with a new system that would eliminate leap seconds but no consensus has yet been reached.
The current version of UTC is defined by International Telecommunications Union Recommendation (ITU-R TF.460-6), Standard-frequency and time-signal emissions[3] and is based on International Atomic Time (TAI) with leap seconds added at irregular intervals to compensate for the slowing of Earth's rotation.[4] Leap seconds are inserted as necessary to keep UTC within 0.9 second of universal time, UT1.[5] See the "Current number of leap seconds" section for the number of leap seconds inserted to date.

Etymology[edit]

Compromise abbreviation
SourceInitialsWords
EnglishCUTCoordinated Universal Time
FrenchTUCTemps Universel Coordonné
compromiseUTC
  • unofficial English: "Universal Time Coordinated";[6]
  • unofficial French: "Universel Temps Coordonné"[7]
The official abbreviation for Coordinated Universal Time is UTC. This abbreviation arose from a desire by the International Telecommunication Union and the International Astronomical Union to use the same abbreviation in all languages. English speakers originally proposed CUT (for "coordinated universal time"), while French speakers proposed TUC (for "temps universel coordonné"). The compromise that emerged was UTC,[8] which conforms to the pattern for the abbreviations of the variants of Universal Time (UT0, UT1, UT2, UT1R, etc.).[9]

Uses[edit]

Time zones around the world are expressed using positive or negative offsets from UTC, as in the list of time zones by UTC offset.
The westernmost time zone uses UTC−12, being twelve hours behind UTC; the easternmost time zone, theoretically, uses UTC+12, being twelve hours ahead of UTC. In 1995, the island nation of Kiribati moved those of its atolls in the Line Islands from UTC-10 to UTC+14 so that the country would all be on the same day.
UTC is used in many Internet and World Wide Web standards. The Network Time Protocol, designed to synchronise the clocks of computers over the Internet, encodes times using the UTC system.[10] Computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC as it is more specific than GMT. If only limited precision is needed, clients can obtain the current UTC from a number of official Internet UTC servers. For sub-microsecond precision, clients can obtain the time from satellite signals.
UTC is also the time standard used in aviation,[11] e.g. for flight plans and air traffic control clearances. Weather forecasts and maps all use UTC to avoid confusion about time zones and daylight saving time. The International Space Station also uses UTC as a time standard.
Amateur radio operators often schedule their radio contacts in UTC, because transmissions on some frequencies can be picked up by many timezones.[12]
UTC is also used in digital tachographs used on large goods vehicles (LGV) under EU and AETR rules.

Mechanism[edit]

UTC divides time into days, hours, minutes and seconds. Days are conventionally identified using the Gregorian calendar, but Julian day numbers can also be used. Each day contains 24 hours and each hour contains 60 minutes. The number of seconds in a minute is usually 60, but with an occasional leap second, it may be 61 or 59 instead.[13]Thus, in the UTC time scale, the second and all smaller time units (millisecond, microsecond, etc.) are of constant duration, but the minute and all larger time units (hour, day, week, etc.) are of variable duration. Decisions to introduce a leap second are announced at least six months in advance in "Bulletin C" produced by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service.[14][15] The leap seconds cannot be predicted far in advance due to the unpredictable rate of rotation of the Earth.[16]
Nearly all UTC days contain exactly 86,400 SI seconds, with exactly 60 seconds in each minute. However, because the mean solar day is slightly longer than 86,400 SI seconds, occasionally the last minute of a UTC day is adjusted to have 61 seconds. The extra second is called a leap second. It accounts for the grand total of the extra length (about 2 milliseconds each) of all the mean solar days since the previous leap second. The last minute of a UTC day is permitted to contain 59 seconds to cover the remote possibility of the Earth rotating faster, but that has not yet been necessary. The irregular day lengths mean that fractional Julian days do not work properly with UTC.
Since 1972, UTC is calculated by subtracting the accumulated leap seconds from International Atomic Time (TAI), which is a coordinate time scale tracking notional proper time on the rotating surface of the Earth (the geoid). In order to maintain a close approximation to UT1 (equivalent to GMT), UTC occasionally has discontinuities where it changes from one linear function of TAI to another. These discontinuities take the form of leap seconds implemented by a UTC day of irregular length. Discontinuities in UTC have occurred only at the end of June or December, although there is provision for them to happen at the end of March and September as well as a second preference.[17] [18]The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) tracks and publishes the difference between UTC and Universal Time, DUT1 = UT1 – UTC, and introduces discontinuities into UTC to keep DUT1 in the interval (−0.9 s, +0.9 s).
As with TAI, UTC is only known with the highest precision in retrospect. Users who require an approximation in real time must obtain it from a time laboratory, which disseminates an approximation using techniques such as GPS or radio time signals. Such approximations are designated UTC(k), where k is an abbreviation for the time laboratory.[19] The time of events may be provisionally recorded against one of these approximations; later corrections may be applied using the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) monthly publication of tables of differences between canonical TAI/UTC and TAI(k)/UTC(k) as estimated in real time by participating laboratories.[20] (See the article on International Atomic Time for details.)
Because of time dilation, a standard clock not on the geoid, or in rapid motion, will not maintain synchronicity with UTC. Therefore, telemetry from clocks with a known relation to the geoid is used to provide UTC when required, on locations such as those of spacecraft.
It is not possible to compute the exact time interval elapsed between two UTC timestamps without consulting a table that describes how many leap seconds occurred during that interval. Therefore, many scientific applications that require precise measurement of long (multi-year) intervals use TAI instead. TAI is also commonly used by systems that cannot handle leap seconds. GPS time always remains exactly 19 seconds behind TAI (neither system is affected by the leap seconds introduced in UTC).
For most common and legal-trade purposes, the fractional second difference between UTC and UT (GMT) is inconsequentially small. Greenwich Mean Time is the legal standard in Britain during the winter, and this notation is familiar to and used by the population.[21]

Time zones[edit]

Main articles: Time zone and Lists of time zones
Time zones are usually defined as differing from UTC by an integer number of hours,[22] although the laws of each jurisdiction would have to be consulted if sub-second accuracy was required. Several jurisdictions have established time zones that differ by an integer number of half-hours or quarter-hours from UT1 or UTC.
Current civil time in a particular time zone can be determined by adding or subtracting the number of hours and minutes specified by the UTC offset, which ranges from UTC−12:00 in the west to UTC+14:00 in the east (see List of UTC time offsets).
The time zone using UTC is sometimes denoted UTC±00:00 or by the letter Z — a reference to the equivalent nautical time zone (GMT), which has been denoted by a Z since about 1950. Time zones were identified by successive letters of the alphabet and the Greenwich time zone was marked by Z as it was the point of origin. The letter also refers to the "zone description" of zero hours, which has been used since 1920 (see time zone history). Since the NATO phonetic alphabet word for Z is "Zulu", UTC is sometimes known as Zulu time. This is especially true in aviation, where Zulu is the universal standard.[23] This ensures all pilots regardless of location are using the same 24-hour clock, thus avoiding confusion when flying between time zones.[24] See the list of military time zones for letters used in addition to Z in qualifying time zones other than Greenwich.
On electronic devices that only allow the current time zone to be configured using maps or city names, UTC can be selected indirectly by selecting ReykjavíkIceland, which is always on UTC and does not use daylight saving time.[25]

Daylight saving time[edit]

Main article: Daylight saving time
UTC does not change with a change of seasons, but local time or civil time may change if a time zone jurisdiction observes daylight saving time (summer time). For example, local time on the east coast of the United States is five hours behind UTC during winter, but four hours behind while daylight saving is observed there.[26]

History[edit]

At the 1884 International Meridian Conference held in Washington, D.C., the local mean solar time at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich in England was chosen to define the Universal day, counted from 0 hours at mean midnight. This agreed with civil Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), used on the island of Great Britain since 1847. In contrast, astronomical GMT began at mean noon, 12 hours after mean midnight of the same date until 1 January 1925, whereas nautical GMT began at mean noon, 12 hours beforemean midnight of the same date, at least until 1805 in the Royal Navy, but persisted much later elsewhere because it was mentioned at the 1884 conference. In 1884, the Greenwich Meridian was used for two-thirds of all charts and maps as their Prime Meridian.[27] In 1928, the term Universal Time (UT) was introduced by the International Astronomical Union to refer to GMT, with the day starting at midnight.[28] Until the 1950s, broadcast time signals were based on UT, and hence on the rotation of the Earth.
In 1955, the caesium atomic clock was invented. This provided a form of timekeeping that was both more stable and more convenient than astronomical observations. In 1956, the U.S. National Bureau of Standards and U.S. Naval Observatory started to develop atomic frequency time scales; by 1959, these time scales were used in generating the WWV time signals, named for the shortwave radio station that broadcasts them. In 1960, the U.S. Naval Observatory, the Royal Greenwich Observatory, and the UK National Physical Laboratory coordinated their radio broadcasts so time steps and frequency changes were coordinated, and the resulting time scale was informally referred to as "Coordinated Universal Time".[29]
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. When the divergence grew significantly, the signal was phase shifted (stepped) by 20 ms to bring it back into agreement with UT. Twenty-nine such steps were used before 1960.[30]
In 1958, data was published linking the frequency for the caesium transition, newly established, with the ephemeris second.[31] The ephemeris second is the duration of time that, when used as the independent variable in the laws of motion that govern the movement of the planets and moons in the solar system, causes the laws of motion to accurately predict the observed positions of solar system bodies. Within the limits of observing accuracy, ephemeris seconds are of constant length, as are atomic seconds. This publication allowed a value to be chosen for the length of the atomic second that would work properly with the celestial laws of motion.[32]
In 1961 the Bureau International de l'Heure began coordinating the UTC process internationally (but the name Coordinated Universal Time was not adopted by the International Astronomical Union until 1967).[33][34] Time steps occurred every few months thereafter, and frequency changes at the end of each year. The jumps increased in size to 100 ms. This UTC was intended to permit a very close approximation to UT2.[35]
In 1967, the SI second was redefined in terms of the frequency supplied by a caesium atomic clock. The length of second so defined was practically equal to the second of ephemeris time.[36] This was the frequency that had been provisionally used in TAI since 1958. It was soon recognised that having two types of second with different lengths, namely the UTC second and the SI second used in TAI, was a bad idea. It was thought that it would be better for time signals to maintain a consistent frequency, and that that frequency should match the SI second. Thus it would be necessary to rely on time steps alone to maintain the approximation of UT. This was tried experimentally in a service known as "Stepped Atomic Time" (SAT), which ticked at the same rate as TAI and used jumps of 200 ms to stay synchronised with UT2.[2]
There was also dissatisfaction with the frequent jumps in UTC (and SAT). In 1968, Louis Essen, the inventor of the caesium atomic clock, and G. M. R. Winkler both independently proposed that steps should be of 1 s only.[37] This system was eventually approved, along with the idea of maintaining the UTC second equal to the TAI second. At the end of 1971, there was a final irregular jump of exactly 0.107758 TAI seconds, so that 1 January 1972 00:00:00 UTC was 1 January 1972 00:00:10 TAI exactly, making the difference between UTC and TAI an integer number of seconds. At the same time, the tick rate of UTC was changed to exactly match TAI. UTC also started to track UT1 rather than UT2. Some time signals started to broadcast the DUT1 correction (UT1 − UTC) for applications requiring a closer approximation of UT1 than UTC now provided.[38][39]

Current number of leap seconds[edit]

The first leap second occurred on 30 June 1972. Since then, leap seconds have occurred on average about once every 19 months, always on 30 June or 31 December. As of June 2014, there have been 25 leap seconds in total, all positive, putting UTC 35 seconds behind TAI.[40]

Rationale[edit]


Graph showing the difference DUT1between UT1 and UTC (in seconds). Vertical segments correspond to leap seconds.
Earth's rotational speed is very slowly decreasing because of tidal deceleration; this increases the length of the mean solar day. The length of the SI second was calibrated on the basis of the second of ephemeris time[32][36] and can now be seen to have a relationship with the mean solar day observed between 1750 and 1892, analysed by Simon Newcomb. As a result, the SI second is close to 1/86400 of a mean solar day in the mid‑19th century.[41] In earlier centuries, the mean solar day was shorter than 86,400 SI seconds, and in more recent centuries it is longer than 86,400 seconds. Near the end of the 20th century, the length of the mean solar day (also known simply as "length of day" or "LOD") was approximately 86,400.0013 s.[42] For this reason, UT is now "slower" than TAI by the difference (or "excess" LOD) of 1.3 ms/day.
The excess of the LOD over the nominal 86,400 s accumulates over time, causing the UTC day, initially synchronised with the mean sun, to become desynchronised and run ahead of it. Near the end of the 20th century, with the LOD at 1.3 ms above the nominal value, UTC ran faster than UT by 1.3 ms per day, getting a second ahead roughly every 800 days. Thus, leap seconds were inserted at approximately this interval, retarding UTC to keep it synchronised in the long term.[43] The actual rotational periodvaries on unpredictable factors such as tectonic motion and has to be observed, rather than computed.
Just as adding a leap day every four years does not mean the year is getting longer by one day every four years, the insertion of a leap second every 800 days does not indicate that the mean solar day is getting longer by a second every 800 days. It will take approximately 50,000 years for a mean solar day to lengthen by one second (at a rate of 2 ms/cy, where cy means century). This rate fluctuates within the range of 1.7–2.3 ms/cy. While the rate due to tidal friction alone is about 2.3 ms/cy, the uplift of Canada and Scandinavia by several metres since the last Ice Age has temporarily reduced this to 1.7 ms/cy over the last 2,700 years.[44] The correct reason for leap seconds, then, is not the current difference between actual and nominal LOD, but rather the accumulation of this difference over a period of time: Near the end of the 20th century, this difference was about 1/800 of a second per day; therefore, after about 800 days, it accumulated to 1 second (and a leap second was then added).
In the graph of DUT1 above, the excess of LOD above the nominal 86,400 s corresponds to the downward slope of the graph between vertical segments. (The slope became shallower in the 2000s, because of a slight acceleration of Earth's crust temporarily shortening the day.) Vertical position on the graph corresponds to the accumulation of this difference over time, and the vertical segments correspond to leap seconds introduced to match this accumulated difference. Leap seconds are timed to keep DUT1 within the vertical range depicted by this graph. The frequency of leap seconds therefore corresponds to the slope of the diagonal graph segments, and thus to the excess LOD.

Future[edit]

See also: Leap second
As the Earth's rotation continues to slow, positive leap seconds are required more frequently. The long-term rate of change of LOD is approximately +1.7 ms per century. At the end of the 21st century, LOD will be roughly 86,400.004 s, requiring leap seconds every 250 days. Over several centuries, the frequency of leap seconds will become problematic.
Some time in the 22nd century, two leap seconds will be required every year. The current use of only the leap second opportunities in June and December will be insufficient, and the March and September options will have to be used. In the 25th century, four leap seconds will be required every year, so the current quarterly options will be insufficient. Thereafter there will need to be the possibility of leap seconds at the end of any month. In about two thousand years, even that will be insufficient, and there will have to be leap seconds that are not at the end of a month.[45] In a few tens of thousands of years (the timing is uncertain), LOD will exceed 86,401 s, causing UTC to require more than one leap second per day.
There is a proposal to redefine UTC and abolish leap seconds, such that sundials would slowly get further out of sync with civil time.[46] The resulting gradual shift of the sun's movements relative to civil time is analogous to the shift of seasons relative to the yearly calendar that results from the calendar year not precisely matching the tropical yearlength. This would be a major practical change in civil timekeeping, but would take effect slowly over several centuries. UTC (and TAI) would be more and more ahead of UT; it would coincide with local mean time along a meridian drifting slowly eastward (reaching Paris and beyond).[47] Thus, the time system would lose its fixed connection to the geographic coordinates based on the IERS meridian. The difference between UTC and UT could reach 0.5 hour after the year 2600 and 6.5 hours around 4600.[45]
ITU‑R Study Group 7 and Working Party 7A were unable to reach consensus on whether to advance the proposal to the 2012 Radiocommunications Assembly; the chairman of Study Group 7 elected to advance the question to the 2012 Radiocommunications Assembly (20 January 2012),[48] but consideration of the proposal was postponed by the ITU until the World Radio Conference in 2015, convening on 2 November.[49]
There is also a proposal to allow greater freedom in scheduling leap seconds so that the present form of UTC could be improved to track UT1 more closely.



21:09:24
Tuesday, June 30, 2015