TAI : Java Glossary

go to home page T words local find full screen, hide local find menu Google search web for more information on this topic jump to foot of page translate this page with Babelfish by Roedy Green ©1996-2009 Canadian Mind Products
index page for letter ⇒ punctuation 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z (all)
TAI
TAI, Temps Atomique International (French for IAT International Atomic Time), measures scientific time, without any concern for time zones, daylight saving or leap seconds. TAI time is defined in termed of the frequency of light from an excited cesium atom. Strangely, perhaps because TAI was invented back in 1955 before the age of computers, TAI times are identified by Gregorian year, month, day, hour, minute, and second. TAI gradually gets more and more out of sync with civil time. Java computations work by TAI times rules, but since computers pay attention to leap seconds when they resynch from atomic clocks, Java times stay in sync with civil time. TAI is currently ahead of UTC by 33 seconds.

Other schemes of scientific time are GPS and Loran both used in navigation, and Julian day number used in astronomy.


CMP homejump to top
CMP logo
feedback Please email your feedback for publication, errors, omissions, broken/redirected link reports
and suggestions to improve this page to Roedy Green : feedback email
made with CSS
HTML Checked!
ICRA ratings logo
mindprod.com IP:[65.110.21.43]
Your face IP:[38.103.63.58]
You are visitor number 3,561.
You can get a fresh copy of this page from: or possibly from your local J: drive (Java virtual drive/mindprod.com website mirror)
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/tai.html J:\mindprod\jgloss\tai.html