[time-nuts] Loran-C & French Clocks

[Lux, James P]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com 
> [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On Behalf Of Bill Hawkins
> Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 4:33 PM
> To: 'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement'
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Loran-C & French Clocks
> 
> According to Wikipedia (a handy way to avoid speculation), 
> international agreement was reached in 1960.
> 

Hah.. Wikipedia != no dispute...
But for this it's probably pretty safe. 


> See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time
> 
> UTC is a compromise between the French and British initials.

Oohh. That's an area with a lot of discussion, and I think it came up on the list a few months back, with folks slinging "first references" back and forth.  Or maybe that was a discussion here at JPL.
Wikipedia, unusually, actually cites a NIST page. (of course, the link in the bibliography for HP AN 1289 by Allan, et al.,  is just to the Wikipedia entry for "Application Note".. Spare me!)

In any case, the solomonic solution of TLA (three letter abbreviation) which is not a TLA (Three Letter Acronym) is not too bad.  Look what happened with the meter and prime meridian a few centuries ago.  I guess we could have the Prime Meridian through Giza and use the Royal Cubit..

Jim