why did they call International Atomic Time (TAI) instead of (IAT)?

[ncc1701d]

why do they call International atomic time TAI instead of IAT ?

 

[boogabooga]

French. Adjectives after nouns.

AFAIK, English/German are the oddities in this regard.

 

[fred18]

Yep, it's french. Also in italian anyway: Tempo Atomico Internazionale

 

[boogabooga]

I assume all Romance languages are like that?

 

[Quick_Nick]

I always assume the answer is "French".
Like SI (units) or CERN. And then UTC (time) is just a compromise between English and French.

 

[Urwumpe]

AFAIK, English/German are the oddities in this regard.

Well, Russian and other Slavic languages also prefer this order, though it isn't fully mandatory there (The word endings are usually accurate enough).

But then, there is also the insider joke of "Falle, Schnapp, für Kleintier, grau" about the absurdities of German military language ... :lol:

 

[Fabri91]

I always assume the answer is "French".
Like SI (units) or CERN. And then UTC (time) is just a compromise between English and French.

I'm not so sure: Universal Time Coordinate could have as its subject "Coordinate" and not "Time", and so would make sense in English. Wild Wednesday-morning guess, however.

 

[jedidia]

Well, Russian and other Slavic languages also prefer this order, though it isn't fully mandatory there (The word endings are usually accurate enough).

In south slavic tongues, it's mostly a style decision. Putting the adjective after the noun is usually considered flowery language and mostly encountered in poetry.

 

[Linguofreak]

In south slavic tongues, it's mostly a style decision. Putting the adjective after the verb is usually considered flowery language and mostly encountered in poetry.

Likewise in English, and likely an influence from when French was a prestige language. Aside from poetry and a few specific phrases (e.g, attorney general, court martial), it just sounds weird though.

 

[ADSWNJ]

I'm not so sure: Universal Time Coordinate could have as its subject "Coordinate" and not "Time", and so would make sense in English. Wild Wednesday-morning guess, however.

It's Universal Time Coordinated ... i.e. the time coordinated across multiple atomic clocks (I assume).

Universal Time Coordinate sounds to me like an awesome 4D space-time fix. Maybe the Big Bang for this universe!

 

[fred18]

How can a simple question raise a highly discussed topic, that's why I love this forum :yes:

 

[Anroalh12]

Same in spanish: Tiempo Atómico Internacional

 

[APDAF]

Now the question is...


What is it in Klingon?

 

[Urwumpe]

Now the question is...


What is it in Klingon?

No adjectives as such. But a similar construct can follow a noun, so it is more like French. Adverbs are placed at the beginning of a sentence in Klingon.

And now excuse me, I have a customer meeting and need my Klingon dictionary.....

 

[PhantomCruiser]

http://tradukka.com/translate/en/tlh?hl=en

Kinda lame...

 

[kamaz]

why do they call International atomic time TAI instead of IAT ?

French: Temps atomique international

And then UTC (time) is just a compromise between English and French.

UTC comes from Universal Time (Coordinated). There are several versions of UT, named UTx:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Time#Versions

NB TAI and UTC are *NOT* equivalent. UTC is atomic time synchronized to astronomical time using leap seconds:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second

There is a continuing push to abolish leap seconds in UTC, where the proponents essentially argue that programmers are too dumb to handle them correctly. If that passes, then UTC will become synchronized with TAI, but will start diverging from UT1 (astronomical time) at the rate of about 1 second per year. This will make life easier for designers of terrestrial systems, but designers of space systems will have to switch to using UT1.

The science of time keeping, its history and politics are utterly fascinating.

^^ Atmos clock, runs on air (literally).

 

[ADSWNJ]

There is a continuing push to abolish leap seconds in UTC, where the proponents essentially argue that programmers are too dumb to handle them correctly. If that passes, then UTC will become synchronized with TAI, but will start diverging from UT1 (astronomical time) at the rate of about 1 second per year. This will make life easier for designers of terrestrial systems, but designers of space systems will have to switch to using UT1.

As one of those programmers, I have to say that the implementation of a 61st "mutant" second into a time stream is a gruesome thing to deal with. It's worse if you are thinking about timestamps on ultra-low latency trading systems in APAC, where a midnight leap second is a mid-trading session leap second. So each market has to work out what to do, each time.

I give mad respect to the Google engineers that came up with the 'leap smear". See this blog: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/time-technology-and-leaping-seconds.html. Such an elegant solution.

 

[sorindafabico]

Brazilian Portuguese: Tempo Atômico Internacional

 

[Matias Saibene]

???????????

^^ Atmos clock, runs on air (literally).

So this wonder, works with the temperature change, the variation of pressure makes it work without human intervention? https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reloj_Atmos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmos_clock

Nearly a perpetual motion machine?
:shifty:

 

[Andy44]

So this wonder, works with the temperature change, the variation of pressure makes it work without human intervention? https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reloj_Atmos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmos_clock

Nearly a perpetual motion machine?
:shifty:

Not a perpetual motion machine, any more than a solar-powered or tidal-powered device would be. It gets energy from an external source.