I Have just learnt after years of confusion that the main difference between the two terms The UK changes back to GMT in the winter. While the time in Greenwich may change to British Summer Time (BST) during the summer, actual GMT does not change with Daylight Savings Time. In reference to the comment about GMT and UTC differing in the summer for 7 months, this is inaccurate. 74.✗.✗.230įirst commenter is confusing GMT with British Summer Time, I think. Also, if you happen to have been born after the year 1990 chances are you are completely incapable of accurately reading a standard analog clock anyway, so you need not worry yourself with any of this time business - just check your phone and know someone smarter than you has paved the way for your ignorance. UTC is not a "time zone" at all - as is GMT. Some of the Facebook replies appear to be the direct result of heavy intoxication. Were it anything approximating a maximum of nine seconds, much confusion would ensue. Owing to the ambiguity of whether UTC or UT1 is meant, and because timekeeping laws usually refer to UTC, GMT is avoided in careful writing.Īctually the maximum permissible deviation between GMT amd UTC is 0.9 sec (i.e., nine tenths of one second) rather than 9 sec.(nine seconds). In casual use, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the same as UTC and UT1. The difference between UTC and UT1 cannot exceed 0.9 s, so if high precision is not required, the general term Universal Time (without a suffix) may be used. Since unanimous agreement could not be achieved on using either the English word order, CUT ( coordinated universal time), or the French word order, TUC ( temps universel coordonné), the acronym UTC was chosen as a compromise. The ITU felt it was best to designate a single abbreviation for use in all languages in order to minimize confusion. Leap seconds are used to allow UTC to closely track UT1, which is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. UTC is the International Atomic Time (TAI, from the French Temps atomique international) with leap seconds added at irregular intervals to compensate for the Earth's slowing rotation. In 1970 the Coordinated Universal Time system was devised by an international advisory group of technical experts within the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It is also used to refer to Universal Time (UT), which is an astronomical concept that directly replaced the original GMT. Strictly speaking, UTC is not a time zone but an atomic time scale which only approximates GMT in the old sense. It is now often used to refer to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) when this is viewed as a time zone. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is a term originally referring to mean solar time at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich where a system was first developed around 1850 for tracking time based on the rotation of the Earth. Diffen › Science › Measurement › Measurement Units
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