[time-nuts] UTC and the speed of light?

Jim Lux jimlux at earthlink.net
Tue Aug 30 13:02:55 UTC 2011


On 8/30/11 12:40 AM, Chris Albertson wrote:
> How is the speed of light accounted for in the definition of UTC?

00:00:00 UTC is the same time everywhere.  propagation only affects it 
if you are transmitting a signal based on UTC.   If I send a signal at 
00:00:00 UTC from LA to Greenwich, they'll get it at 00:00:00.1, at the 
same time as I receive the signal they sent at 00:00:00 UTC.

But the actual "instant" is the same.
The instant is the same, but a single observer cannot tell this.
>
> In other words, how did they solve the conflict where on one hand we'd all
> expect two "perfect" clocks to "tick" at the same time but wether they do
> depends on the location of the observer?




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