Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site utastro.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!ut-sally!utastro!bill From: bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys) Newsgroups: net.physics Subject: Re: Atomic clocks - Who knows if they're correct? Message-ID: <124@utastro.UUCP> Date: Thu, 16-Feb-84 14:10:23 EST Article-I.D.: utastro.124 Posted: Thu Feb 16 14:10:23 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 18-Feb-84 03:42:37 EST References: <229@heurikon.UUCP> Organization: UTexas Astronomy Dept., Austin, Texas Lines: 20 This is an interesting question. My best suggestion is that pulsar timings could be used to resynchronize the atomic time standards. The newly discovered millisecond pulsars do not seem to have the "glitches" that the slower pulsars have, so they would probably be the best. My guess is that you could probably get things going to within a few microseconds, but I am not an expert in this area. I discussed this with a colleague, and none of the other schemes we came up with were anywhere near as accurate or straightforward. As to the utility of doing this, there are many astronomical observations that require *epoch* as well as *interval*; orbital observations are an obvious example. Pulsar timings are another. -- Bill Jefferys 8-% Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712 (USnail) {ihnp4,kpno,ctvax}!ut-sally!utastro!bill (uucp) utastro!bill@ut-ngp (ARPANET)