On Sun 2020-11-15T23:28:29+0000 Michael H Deckers hath writ:
Commission 31 is quite explicit:
The proofreading of these minutes was distracted by serious issues. https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/FEF0... On page 198 point 9.2 definitely has a typo. This is not surprising given that the minutes of the first session on August 19 have had at least one paragraph redacted lest the IAU proceedings reveal the level of disagreement about leap seconds among the very same people who had been part of the meetings leading to that decision. Winkler, president at that meeting, was co-author (with Sadler) of one of the reports contributed before the 1970 IAU GA which said that leap seconds would cause failures in air traffic collision avoidance systems, and he later published USNO bulletins which described how the USNO was not going to be using UTC for its systems. Sadler, also at that meeting, later revealed that the proceedings of the 4th CCDS meeting for which there is a record are actually the proceedings of the *second* 4th CCDS meeting. The *first* 4th CCDS meeting was stricken from all records, so the redaction of a paragraph or two at the IAU is mild by comparison. For fun here is a photo of the IAU excursion from Brighton up to London on 1970 August 23 -- after the first two contentious sessions of Comm 31, during the wordsmithing phase that led to the results in the last two sessions of Comm 31. https://www.ucolick.org/~sla/temporary/IAU19700823Sadler.jpg At the right walking toward the camera along the path is D.H. Sadler, no doubt in contemplation of the draft statement for the next day where he would ask for a vote about whether leap seconds really were the "optimum solution". -- Steve Allen <sla@ucolick.org> WGS-84 (GPS) UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB 260 Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat +36.99855 1156 High Street Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06015 Santa Cruz, CA 95064 https://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m