Talk:Coordinated Universal Time

Etymology

The article states that English speakers originally proposed CUT, while French speakers proposed TUC. The compromise that emerged was UTC
But what about German and Danish people? Why were they not asked? Why only English and French? Konijnewolf (talk) 13:50, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

The cited source from NIST says

Template:Quote

So according to the source, English and French are just examples of possible language issues. One would have to dig through the literature of the International Telecommunications Union in the 1960s to find what proposals were actually made. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:44, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

I see that phrasing similar to the present phrasing was introduced by in October 2011. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:52, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

I edited the article and added a quote by Dennis McCarthy about the origin of UTC. I eliminated unsourced claims that unnamed, unsourced English and French speakers made proposals. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:54, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Jc. It looks better now. Konijnewolf (talk) 12:11, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

The name Universal Coordinated Time is functionally wrong because there simply isn't any coordination going on. UTC is the average time of 57 caesium and 24 hydrogen maser clocks) being run and maintained by the U.S. Naval Observatory's time service in Washington, DC. Also thanks to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity we know our Universe is "3D+1", i.e. three distance coordinates plus one time coordinate, therefore UTC literally means Universal Time Coordinate and the name of the page ought to be changed to reflect this.190.31.50.211 (talk) 12:46, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Template:Tq Feel free to report that to the ITU-R, the successor to the CCIR, as the CCIR are, apparently, the organization that adopted the English name "Coordinated Universal Time", the French name "Temps Universel Coordonne", and the term "UTC", which is an abbreviation of neither of them, and the ITU-R is the successor to that organization. See the reference from Template:Section link.

Template:Tq No, the clocks are worldwide, and run by different national organizations; UTC isn't a US-run project.

Template:Tq That's from special relativity.

Template:Tq The name of the page ought to be the name of the concept, which is "Coordinated Universal Time", whether you think that name appropriate. Again, get the ITU-R to change the name, and Wikipedia will change the page name to match. Guy Harris (talk) 13:13, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Merge from UTC offset

Proposing to merge UTC offset here because the description of the offsets (the fact that they are usually in hour and sometimes in quarter hour increments, for example), is already described in Coordinated Universal Time#Time zones; for a list of offsets, List of UTC offsets already exists. While there is discussion of UTC offsets it's better placed in UTC itself, where there is context, or articles like Time zone and so on rather than linking it to UTC if it's more general discussion. Most of the UTC offset article is just a background summary of time zones, a few remarks on the patterns of offsets mostly already in the time zones section of UTC, and a list of some example offsets. The UTC offset article also currently has no citations. Mrfoogles (talk) 19:17, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Support provided that it is a fully managed merger (there is some useful content there that is not also here), not just a fire-and-forget redirect. Also,there are about 400 incoming links to that article, so an explicit section name (or at least anchor) called "UTC offset" will be needed. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:57, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

The analogous section is "Time zones", I think, for the non-list content. Looking at the article again I can see how there could be a dedicated section for UTC offset -- e.g. "This difference is expressed with respect to UTC and is generally shown in the format ±[hh]:[mm], ±[hh][mm], or ±[hh]." I think it should just be a subsection of Time zones, though, and UTC offset should redirect there. Mrfoogles (talk) 04:26, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Support but I agree with JMF, this has to be done right! Pichpich (talk) 23:00, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose Unnecessary. 124.19.40.114 (talk) 07:18, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Support per JMF. 三葉草 San Yeh Tsao 05:16, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Support with cautionary notes mentioned by JMF --ABehrens (talk) 21:27, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose Not an improvement. 2001:8003:9100:2C01:5CFD:257A:34B0:358B (talk) 08:43, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Support a merge in general, but oppose merging into UTC, I think it is best suited in time zone because that is what an UTC offset is in essence. But if there is no consensus for merging into time zone, I prefer merging into UTC over not merging at all. PhotographyEdits (talk) 13:52, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

Oppose. UTC offset deserves to be its own article. DangerousEagles (talk) 13:44, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

Definition by BIPM

The article states:

> The current version of UTC is defined by International Telecommunication Union Recommendation (ITU-R TF.460-6), Standard-frequency and time-signal emissions

But when looking into that spec, it says:

> UTC is the time-scale maintained by the BIPM, with assistance from the IERS

Then how come we claim it is defined by the ITU? PhotographyEdits (talk) 17:52, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

ITU defines it, and BIPM with IERS make the measurements of Earth's rotation and decide when a leap second should be announced. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:27, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Reversion

Template:Ping You reverted my edit immediately, with comment "Letters are not usually considered reliable, and are primary sources at best. Also the letter-writer is the editor who added the summary of the letter to this article."

First of all, it's not a question of reliability or whether it's "primary", of course. It's a fact that the suggestion was madeTemplate:Dashthe letter to editor proves that, and shows that New Scientist considered the suggestion worthy of publishing. Secondly, there is no policy that says I can't reference womething I wrote, unless it is to promote sales, which of course doesn't apply. I propose to resore my edit. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 06:01, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Please discuss at Talk:Coordinated Universal Time. Please bring into the discussions reasons from Wikipedia:Identifying Reliable Sources why the information from that source should be added. You may wish to consider the views from this previous discussion: Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Archive 13 #Letters to the editor of peer-reviewed journals: automatically reliable? Jc3s5h (talk) 15:08, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

I have already addressed the question of reliability. Didn't you read what I wrote? Eric Kvaalen (talk) 09:42, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

I do not consider letters to a popular science magazine to be sufficient to make a suggestion noteworthy enough to mention it in the Wikipedia article. This is particularly an issue since the letter seems to be a response to another letter (dead link). I don't see anything on the New Scientist website explaining their procedures for vetting letters. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:14, 11 June 2025 (UTC)