Talk:ΔT (timekeeping)

message: To basically sum up what Delta T is you just use the equation TT−UT1=Delta T.
— 68.47.224.141 on July 1, 2004.
Delta T is given by 32.184 + (TAI−UTC) + (UT1−UTC) seconds, where (TAI−UTC) is the number of leap seconds.  (UT1−UTC) changes continually as the Earth's rotational rate varies; it's actual value must be determined by observation, but is often predicted by formulas. Leap seconds are adjusted to keep abs(UT1−UTC) below 1.0 seconds.
  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.58.1.86 (talk) 18:28, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Equation

message: :"This means that at −500 Earth's faster rotation would cause a total solar eclipse to occur 70° to the east of its location calculated using the uniform TT."
I think this sentance needs clarification. What is "−500 Earth's faster rotation"? 
:Somewhat better wording might be: "Earth's faster rotation at the year −500". Here, astronomical year numbering is being used, were −500 = 501 BC. However, even more clarification seems to be needed, if I could determine a better way to explain the concept. — Joe Kress 06:12, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing unit of measurement? 

message: Just to advise, I work in Air Conditioning and Delta T is commonly used in Psychrometrics (the study of air) to indicate the temperature difference.
A typical formula is Q = M \times C \times \Delta T, where:
Mass (flow rate)  multiplied Constant specific heat capacity (of air) multiplied by the ΔT (difference in temperature) will result in Q (Heat added to air). (Note: This isn't 100% accurate, I'm attempting to find specific information on this which can be used) - ~Xytram~ 15:38, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm adding a disambiguation link at the top of the article, but it would certainly be helpful if those formulas or some other mention of ΔT be in the psychrometrics article. It is standard to indicate such as redirect by placing the target phrase in bold, for example, ΔT (ΔT), so that the reader's eye is drawn to it when they get to the alternative article. — Joe Kress 23:41, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, although I know that dT is used in A/C and I have a little training in psychrometrics, I don't feel qualified enough to edit the main page. I'll post something in the talk page there. ~Xytram~ 20:42, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delta T (Psychrometrics) 

message: It appears we have problems with a symbol used for the tidal acceleration of the Moon's mean motion.  There used to be a capital Gamma here.  However the literature uses a dotted n.  Recently I approximated this with an accented n (ń) from the Wiki markup characters, which I found acceptable because primed variables are commonly used to indicate derivatives.  Joe Kress inserted a proper unicode char.  Unfortunately it does not disply in my Internet Explorer, and I suppose this will bother more readers.  Therefore I suggest to write d(n)/dt , for which the dotted n is an abbreviation; I believe it was originally in this article anyway. Tom Peters 09:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was able to view the n dot character in both Mozilla Firefox and in Internet Explorer 7, but not in IE6 on my old computer (it's a square). Many of the Wiki markup characters are also squares in IE6, but I can view all in either IE7 or Firefox. I'm willing to accept whatever you think is best, ń or d(n)/dt or dn/dt. — Joe Kress 07:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  n-dot symbol 

message: The article currently says that TT is based on TAI and inherits its non-uniformity at the 10-14 level.  This is not correct: TAI is actually a realisation of TT, and TT is by definition perfectly uniform.  I corrected the article diff, but User:Joe Kress reverted my correction.  What's your reasoning, Joe Kress?  Your edit summary didn't explain what was wrong with my text.  195.224.75.71 14:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I can't speak for Joe, but platonic idealism has nothing to do with time scales, and anonymous edits are suspect anyway.  Make a decent account if you want to make serious contributions.  In any case, there is no clock that actually runs close to TT, while any cesium clock will show you the time close to TAI.  So TT is a theoretical time scale and is derived in practice from TAI.  On the other hand TAI does not depend in any way on TT.  Tom Peters 15:02, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I may have been too hasty. I had not seen "platonic" used in relation to time scales, so I assumed it was vandalism, which was reinforced by the separation of several paragraphs at random locations (these minor edits were ignored by Wikipedia) and the change was made by an anonymous editor. Your edits would be given more authority if you sign in to Wikipedia at the upper right hand corner of any page (choose any name or handle). I now see that "platonic" means an ideal definition in contrast to its physical realization. The problem is that Terrestrial Time has both, so we cannot regard TT as ideal and TAI as real. A realization of TT is TT(BIPM06), with an associated error. It would be pedantic to claim that TT without any parenthetical realization can only mean the ideal version. — Joe Kress 01:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Yet I removed it again.  "platonic idealism" is a completely inappropriate description of modern theoretical concepts.  Plato nor any one of his known followers had anything to say about TT.  I see no evidence that astronomers who introduced TT were driven by platonic idealism.  As for the anonymity of User:195.224.75.71: you do state the legal name of Andrew Main, and the alias Zefram.  Suit yourself, but by continuing contributing under an apparently anonymous IP address you will keep confusing people like you did Joe and me. Tom Peters 21:04, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Afterthought: here's a source for "platonic" in the context of time scales:  by Steve Allen, a professional astronomer with a paticular interest in time scales.  "... TDB has effectively been converted from a Platonic or theoretical time scale into a practical one ..." and "TT is intended as a Platonic ideal, for there is no single realization of it.".  It's possible that I picked up "platonic" in this context from that page; I don't recall one way or the other.  81.168.80.170 20:35, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  TAI based on TT 

message: This could pose a problem in the distant future; I don't think fortnights of daylight and darkness would be well tolerated by terrestrial life. Has any thought been given to a plan to grind up the moon or otherwise diminish the threat it poses (admittedly very long term) to public safety? knoodelhed 04:04, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Delta T indicates the change in time that an event occurs and is the integral of Earth's slowing rotation, so time changes at a much greater rate than Earth's day increases, the latter increasing only 1 ms/day/century over hundreds of millions of years (half the present rate). Earth's oceans will evaporate in 700 million years, virtually halting any further increase in Earth's day at about 26 hours (Earth's day was about 22 hours long 600,000,000 years ago). In contrast, Delta T (presently 31(years/100)² seconds) will reach 14 days (1,209,600 seconds) in only 20,000 years, at which time Earth's day will have increased by only a third of a second! It has also been shown that the Moon maintains the tilt of Earth's axis at 23.5°±1.3°. If the Moon were to disappear, Earth's axis would wildly fluctuate between 0° and 85°. If it reached 85° it would almost be laying on its side, causing each polar hemisphere to be in night or day for many months, which would kill most life on Earth. Conversely, the Moon allowed life to develop on Earth, so we would not be here if the Moon had not formed. — Joe Kress 08:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Future problems 

message: The first paragraph of the article states:
"[the extensive ice age icecaps melted], allowing the land under them to begin to rebound upward in the polar regions, which has been continuing and will continue until isostatic equilibrium is reached."
Fair enough: I've hear this theory before, and have no problem with it. However, the article then goes on to say:
"This "glacial rebound" brings mass closer to the rotation axis of the Earth, which makes the Earth spin faster (law of conservation of angular momentum)..." (my emphasis),
That doesn't make any sense. Surely the ground is moving upwards as stated earlier in the paragraph, due to rebounding after the ice age glaciers melted. Just because this rebounding is "in the polar regions", that doesn't make the direction of rebounding towards the centre of gravity; if it was, the land would be going down, not up. No, the net movement is outwards, away from the centre of gravity and not towards it.
Someone please explain if I have missed something here, or if this is the problem I think it is.
WikiReaderer 01:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The quote says that mass is closer to the rotation axis, not the center of gravity. The glacial uplift represents extra mass in the polar regions, which are close to the axis, when measured perpendicular to that axis. — Joe Kress 03:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't make sense to me, either.  The South Pole is covered by land, and the North Pole by ocean.  The effects at each pole must be different.  Also, the melted water must travel away from the poles, moving the mass farther from the axis, not closer.  Can the correct explanation be made clearer?  Is the Earth made less oblate somehow? Unfree (talk) 01:28, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. The volume of the Earth remains constant during the polar uplift, so while the polar regions are displaced outward along the axis, equatorial regions must come closer towards the axis. While the displacement of the polar regions along the axis doesn't change their contribution to the Earth's moment of inertia (apart maybe from some second-order effects such as redistribution of ocean water), the smaller distance of the equatorial bulge from the axis reduces the total moment of inertia.-- Tosch (talk) 09:40, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction and nonsense 

message: "Terrestrial Time (TT) is a theoretical uniform time scale, defined to provide continuity with the former Ephemeris Time (ET)."  This sounds unnecessarily close to "theoretically uniform".  If it means what I think it means, Terrestrial Time is an invariant time scale, and there's nothing "theoretical" about it, except that it's artificial, in the sense that it's defined independently of astronomical observations.  "Continuity with" is meaningless to me.  Perhaps that's supposed to indicate that TT is close to ET.  Beats me.  How can there be continuity between the two concepts?  "Former Ephemeris Time" seems to me to imply that there are at least two definitions of Ephemeris Time, one "former" and another other than "former", which is misleading.  If that means what I think it means, "former" ought to be deleted entirely, or replaced by something like "formerly used (for something)". Unfree (talk) 01:16, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I would think it would not only be independent of astronomical observations, but also independent of atomic clocks. After all, any real collection of atomic clocks is slightly imperfect. As far as "continuity with" is concerned, I think that just means the starting value of TT is set equal to the value of ET at that time, as best as can be determined. --Jc3s5h (talk) 01:42, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Unnecessary Complexity

message: In the very long term, it is indeed true to state (in the main article): "[Delta-T] will continue to increase at an ever faster (quadratic) rate in the future".
At the same time, it is interesting to note the diagram on p.33 in the [UK publication] New Scientist of 30th January 1999, illustrating Stephenson and Morrison's suggestion that there might be an oscillation effect - so, (if that oscillation is real), during the next few centuries Delta-T will not increase quite as much as envisaged. But perhaps this is still too speculative to qualify for a mention on the main page, is it?
DLMcN (talk) 20:50, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  The present trend in Delta-T values 

message: From Unknown, initially rating this article as C-Class on the project's quality scale and Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Senator2029║talk 06:47, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Initial rating

message: I recently rated this article for Wikiproject Physics and was asked to give some pointers on how it could be made up to a B Class (criteria here).
Looking through the assessment criteria:
:#The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations where necessary  (the first paragraph might need an additional one or two but it's enough for me)
:#The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies  (only just though)
:#The article has a defined structure 
:#The article is reasonably well-written 
:#The article contains supporting materials where appropriate 
:#The article presents its content in an appropriately understandable way 
I'll address each point in order;
*The article doesn't really address why ΔT is important or the impact of changes to it. Additionally, it glosses over why 1820 is such an important year for calibrating time measurements. You could also consider including the history/adoption of ΔT, though this is possibly a little less important.
*Currently there isn't really any structure at all. The article needs a lead section and you could consider putting the paragraphs about Universal Time and Terrestrial Time into their own sections with links to their (respective) main articles.
*I have added a clarify tag to the sentence(s) about glacial rebound. They are correct, however as already evidenced further up this talk page could perhaps be worded slightly more clearly. It would perhaps be worth mentioning that the effects of glacial rebound of the land mass outweigh the effects on the moment of inertia of the release of liquid water to the equator, hence bringing mass closer to the rotation axis, (etc.).
Lastly it's worth noting that the article should generally be compliant with the Manual of Style.
I hope this helps! I'd be happy to reassess if any editors feel these points have been addressed.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Newty23125 (talk • contribs) 14:49, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject Physics Rating 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on ΔT. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20151231234339/http://user.online.be/felixverbelen/dt.htm to http://user.online.be/felixverbelen/dt.htm
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The recent addition of section headings sharpened a tension in this article between the idealistic version of a simple quadratic expression for ΔT, now in a separate section of Values prior to 1955, and the non-quadratic form of non-tidal terms discussed in the rest of the article.  It leaves the reader with the impression that the complexities discussed earlier in the article can be ignored prior to 1955, when in fact, they really become significant when considering such long-term calculations.
I'm not certain how best to go about resolving this but it seems to me that the simple quadratic expression should be presented as a simplified model, while the more complex analyses based on the historical observations collected by Stephenson and Morrison more adequately should be presented as more complete expressions of the Earth's changing rotation over the long term. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:52, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems arising from new section headings 

message: This article of last December is probably the most comprehensive and up-to-date on this subject, so I suggest it be cited. Zerotalk 11:14, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Important recent article 

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*Added archive https://archive.is/20120716020131/sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEhelp/rotation.html to http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEhelp/rotation.html
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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: The given equations do not calculate delta T. They also introduce a symbol T meaning the Earth's rotation period, but in the expressionext delta T the symbol T means the time since the epoch. Humphrey Jungle (talk) 23:24, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right, the section "Calculating ΔT" including the two sub-sections, provide some information related to calculating ΔT, but don't actually calculate it. It's also confusing that the ΔT is a term of art, and does not mean the difference between two values of the same variable T. We could fix the first problem by rewriting the section, but the second problem is not something we can fix, because that's the way the scientific community defines the term. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:43, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Calculating delta T 

message: The UK Hydrographic Office in Taunton, Somerset, has issued a diagram which gives a really excellent illustration of the final statement in the opening paragraph of this Wikipedia article - [namely: "Since 2017, the length of the day has happened to be very close to the conventional value, and ΔT has remained within a second of 69 seconds"].
This diagram is temporarily viewable in my private website at http://www.dlmcn.com/deltaT_March_2023_Short.pdf ... It could presumably be uploaded here if we get permission from the UK Hydrographic Office? --DLMcN (talk) 20:13, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Permission to use the diagram was received in this e-mail:
Ref:  CS-271713-G8T5  Your enquiry has been ... logged under this unique Reference Number, which should be quoted in any further correspondence with us.
Good day,
Thank you for your enquiry, this has been shared with our HMNAO team and they have provided the following;
“Thank you for your kind words, we are happy for you to use our diagrams for the Delta-T Wikipedia article. Unfortunately due to our site’s essential maintenance we do not have a permanent link to these images. To complicate matters further we also update these diagrams automatically every month and so placing them in another location in a static fashion would quickly become obsolete.
 
For now we are happy to send you the new files each month for updating, and when our website returns we will be sure to let you know of their new location.”
Kind regards
Shaun Cockram
<customerservices@ukho.gov.uk>,
Customer Services, UK Hydrographic Office,
Admiralty Way, TAUNTON, Somerset, UK, TA1 2DN,
Tel: +44 (0)1823 484444
www.Admiralty.co.uk
--DLMcN (talk) 19:28, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

text: No permission is required to just link to an internet resource. On the other hand, if we wish to display the image ourselves, permission to publish on Wikipedia is not enough. A free license is required, which is defined at WP:Image use policy. Images without such a license are always removed before long. Images hosted on Commons have a similar restriction, see here. Cheers, Zerotalk 01:22, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you, Zero, for your comment and advice. I have been trying to explore and make sense of the various Wikipedia links on this topic, but confess that it is not at all clear exactly what I need to do in this particular context, to get the necessary licence and permission. If you could please point me in the right direction, that would be much appreciated. Thanks in anticipation, --DLMcN (talk) 08:06, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diagram showing present and recent values of Delta-T