This'll bu99er up the tidal calcs

[Ru88ell]

GMT could move to the USA. I can't see it happening myself, but then I'll be well dead by then.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...ime-could-drift-to-the-US-minister-warns.html

 

[prv]

A certain Mr Cunliffe was writing about this very thing several years ago. Although with more of an anti-French flavour than anti-American . And, as a celestial navigator, with a more evident familiarity with his subject matter.

Pete

 

[lustyd]

Grenwich Mean Time by definition cannot move, being the time at midday at greenwich. The article is talking about UTC which can easily be moved since it is not and never has been based on geography but happened to line up with GMT for convenience. Unfortunately they don't know much about time standards and were likely saying GMT to generate outrage at our precious Greenwich meridian being taken from us.
The drift will only affect those who rigidly stick to the clock, and those are a dying breed. Obviously for tides we need to be somewhere by somewhen, but those times are a one off and will be calculated to the current UTC of the day so we'll be fine. With home working becoming more common (and even more so now that flexible working is being extended to everyone, not just the ladies) we'll see a shift towards doing 7.5 hours a day or meeting targets rather than starting at 9am. Obviously certain industries won't be included in this, but I'm sure in the next hundred years or so they'll find a way to cope - assuming humans are still required in those areas such as factories and service.

 

[Twister_Ken]

GMT could move to the USA. I can't see it happening myself, but then I'll be well dead by then.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...ime-could-drift-to-the-US-minister-warns.html

Which part of the USA. It matters, because there are four time zones available, five if you include Hawaii.

 

[zzyyxx]

I never really understood why we needed timezones at all.

 

[Sandy]

I never really understood why we needed timezones at all.

An interesting concept; I blame the railways myself.

 

[vyv_cox]

I never really understood why we needed timezones at all.

There are none in China. When I was working in the west of the country we started work at 1000 when the sun came up, whereas in Beijing we were starting at 0700.

 

[zzyyxx]

There are none in China. When I was working in the west of the country we started work at 1000 when the sun came up, whereas in Beijing we were starting at 0700.

It does seem to be the obvious way to do it.

 

[maby]

It's already happened to a large extent - GPS time does not use leap seconds and is slowly drifting out of sync with all the solar based time zones. A lot of industry tends to use GPS time these days and makes the published adjustments to arrive at local solar time.

 

[laika]

By my (post-pub back of a fag packet) calculations (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) most of you will be dead by the time "time" has "drifted" as far west as the Westfield shopping centre at Shepherds Bush and it'll be about 1000 years before the cornish are claiming their fair share (as a legitimate minority) of the prime meridian action. Our astro calculations will just involve a single additional correction from the almanac.

EDIT: Oh wait! It's the *science* minister with a degree in...errr.....PPE saying that "time will become meaningless". My calculations must be wrong then. I'll check them in the morning.

 

[LadyInBed]

Time zones are age related, the young work in a different time zone to the old :ambivalence:

 

[snowleopard]

Chauvinism aside, there would be advantages to moving the prime meridian well away from us.

Can anyone who has sailed in the North sea honestly claim they have never entered a waypoint with the wrong sign?

 

[maby]

Chauvinism aside, there would be advantages to moving the prime meridian well away from us.

Can anyone who has sailed in the North sea honestly claim they have never entered a waypoint with the wrong sign?

Current Raymarine PC software refuses to accept a longitude between 1 degree West and 1 degree East! Same for latitudes - real pain...