04-04-2019, 12:23 PM
Nice one Cormanus,i did not know this, in addition to that i would mention that gps time has no leap seconds because that would present a problem to time based networks like cellular networks who deal with accurate timeslots for data transfer over long distances.
So whilst we adjust for leap seconds to keep summer time in summer whilst the earth slows down the gps just keeps accurately ticking away and takes no notice, this causes the gps time and utc to present us with a time difference that increases with every leap second we adjust our clocks.
The satellites have more than one atomic clock on board and are being "trimmed" from earth to maintain step with the master atomic clock at n.i.s.t. in Boulder Colorado.
The difference was 0 seconds in 1980 but has increased to 18 seconds today.
just in case you want to adjust the time on your gps, which of course is not possible.
this page has four clocks on it at the bottom of the page that indicate the different systems and explains why;
https://www.ipses.com/eng/In-depth-analy...definition
So whilst we adjust for leap seconds to keep summer time in summer whilst the earth slows down the gps just keeps accurately ticking away and takes no notice, this causes the gps time and utc to present us with a time difference that increases with every leap second we adjust our clocks.
The satellites have more than one atomic clock on board and are being "trimmed" from earth to maintain step with the master atomic clock at n.i.s.t. in Boulder Colorado.
The difference was 0 seconds in 1980 but has increased to 18 seconds today.
just in case you want to adjust the time on your gps, which of course is not possible.
this page has four clocks on it at the bottom of the page that indicate the different systems and explains why;
https://www.ipses.com/eng/In-depth-analy...definition