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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)
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