Utc

[rich49]

Can anyone tell me why Universal Coordinated Time is UTC and not UCT? Surly it would be the later way around???
Cheers

[russelldav]

not a french decision was it?

[Nozzles]

Yes, I do believe indeed it is because of the French. In the same way as NATO E3s also have 'OTAN' written on them. Or was that so you can read it in your mirror?
By the way, isn't it Co-ordinated Universal Time?

[richie-rich]

Nozzle, right u r :cool:

Richie

[Notso Fantastic]

Yeah- but the French aren't acktcherly in NATO, so why do NATO E3s have French on them?

[amanoffewwords]

According to the Nato site France are in - see http://www.nato.int/structur/countries.htm

The Belgians, Canadians and Luxembourgs speak French too.

[brimstone]

I think you will find that UTC stands for Universal Time Constant

[1261]

Time is one of the remits of the International Telecommunicaitons Union; this is the (UN, I think) body that regulates comms worldwide - and it's dominated by the French!

Hence, Mayday, Pan, Securite, etc.

[Herod]

I believe it's actually Universal Time (Coordinated). Apparently you should only use UT unless you have a timepiece connected to one of these radio broadcasts that's accurate to "one second in a million years", which will "coordinate" it. But in reality nobody really gives a damn.

[DrSyn]

Ah, now this is one of those flowering perennials that is always fun to discuss. As with all international "agreements" a compromise lies at the heart of it and, yes, the French were involved. With the advent of high-precision time pieces and the need for absolute global synchronisation, a meeting was held in 1970 to find a world standard, as the Earth's rotation is a bit variable.

GMT, smacking as it did of past British naval dominance, had to have a more politically correct name in the new order of things. Coordinated Universal Time (CUT) was the solution. Unfortunately, this was far too Anglo-Saxon for the French who preferred Temps Universel Coordonné (TUC). Unfortunately, this acronym was already too familiar to British households of the period, who had to stock-up on candles to supplement their electricity supplies, etc. So everyone agreed on UTC, rearranged the words according to ethnic taste, and the world lived happily coordinated ever after.

For those interested in the technical aspects of UTC, this (http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/fs-1037/dir-009/_1277.htm) link is worth a browse. Those who remain affectionately attached to GMT or Zulu, can find a splendid account of its origins here (http://www.aros.net/~yogi/zulutime.htm).

Hope this is instructive :)

[OzExpat]

I've always gone my own way on this and referred to it as Coordinated Universal Navigation Time. :E