Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: UTC |
UTCNoun1. Greenwich Mean Time updated with leap seconds. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
"UTC" is a common misspelling or typo for: Act, Duct, Dutch, Etch, Hutch, Itch, Tuck, Tux, Ute, Utica. |
| Domain | Definition |
Computing | UTC Coordinated Universal Time. Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing. |
Space | Coordinated Universal Time, the world-wide scientific standard of timekeeping. UTC is based upon carefully maintained atomic clocks and is kept accurate to within microseconds worldwide. The addition or subtraction of leap seconds, as necessary, at two opportunities every year adjusts UTC for irregularities in Earth's rotation. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Coordinated Universal Time or UTC, also known as civil time, is the reference time zone from which all other time zones around the world are calculated. It is the successor of Greenwich Mean Time, abbreviated as GMT, and is still colloquially called GMT sometimes. The new name was coined to eliminate having the name of a specific location in an international standard. UTC bases time measurement on atomic standards rather than GMT's celestial ones.
Because the rotation of the Earth slows down, GMT lags behind atomic time, measured by atomic clocks. UTC is kept within 0.9 s of UT1; leap seconds are added (or removed) at the end of a month as necessary. The issuing of leap seconds is determined by the International Earth Rotation Service, based on their measurements of the Earth's rotation.
"UTC" is not a real abbreviation; it is a variant of Universal Time, abbreviated UT, and has a modifier C (for "coordinated") appended to it just like other variants of UT. It may be regarded as a compromise between the English abbreviation "CUT" and the French abbreviation "TUC".
Converting
Coordinated Universal Time
to (winter) U.S Local TimeEastern Standard Time UTC -5 Central Standard Time UTC -6 Mountain Standard Time UTC -7 Pacific Standard Time UTC -8 Alaska Standard Time UTC -9 Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time UTC -10 For more, see time zone and DST. International standard UTC time can only be determined to the highest precision after the fact, as atomic time is determined by the reconciliation of the observed differences between an ensemble of atomic clocks maintained by a number of national time bureaus. This is done under the auspices of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM). However, local clusters of atomic clocks are sufficient for accuracy to within a few tens of nanoseconds.
UTC presents problems for computer systems such as Unix which store time as the number of seconds from a reference time. Because of leap seconds, it is impossible to determine the representation of a future date, because the number of leap seconds included in that date is unknown.
UTC is the time system used for many Internet and World Wide Web standards. In particular, the Network time protocol is designed as a way of dynamically distributing UTC time over the Internet.
There are some classes of software UTC clocks:
As indicated in the standards, it is convenient include the UTC date too.
- Relating to the calculation of the hour:
- Drag when the clock shows the UTC hour calculating it from your local computer clock. You can see if a UTC clock is a drag one changing your local computer clock: if UTC hour varies, it is a drag UTC clock.
- Autonomous, if it is not a drag clock. This is the best class of UTC clock.
- Showing the hour:
- Static: the time does not change from the latest reload.
- Dynamic: the time changes from minute to minute
The UTC time zone is sometimes denoted by the letter 'Z' for military purposes. Since the NATO phonetic alphabet and radio-amateur word for 'Z' is "Zulu", UTC is sometimes known as Zulu time.
Wikipedia's own servers use Coordinated Universal Time, but logged-in users can set their time zone in the user preferences, see also Wikipedia:User_preferences_help#Textbox_and_time.
See also
- sidereal time
- Time zone
External Links
- BIPM UTC/TAI Time Server
- thetimeNOW - Current time in all time zones
- The official U.S. time
- United States Naval Observatory - What is Universal Time?
- International Earth Rotation Service Leap Second Updates
- Make your own UTC /Local time hardware clock
- W3C Specification about UTC Date and Time and IETF Internet standard RFC 3339.
- UTC Tag for web pages
- Autonomous static clock.
- Drag dynamic clock in Java.
- Java autonomous dynamic clock from the BIPM and (for this one you need Flash 4 or higher) http://www.page-1.com/GMT/
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Coordinated Universal Time."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
UTC | Dutch | Gecoördineerde universele tijd | Post & Telecom |
UTC | English | Universal test console | N/A |
UTC | German | Koordinierte Weltzeit | Post & Telecom |
UTC | Portuguese | Tempo universal coordenado | Post & Telecom |
UTC | Spanish | Tiempo universal coordinado | Post & Telecom |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonym: UTCSynonym: universal time coordinated (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: UTC |
| Specialty definitions using "UTC": Coordinated Universal Time ♦ radiosonde ♦ TLAs. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "UTC" is also a word in the following language with English translations in parentheses. Portuguese (coordinated universal time, co-ordinated universal time, Greenwich Mean Time, Greenwich-meantime). |
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Consumer Goods | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | This image is true stereo from GOES-East and GOES-West satellites. Use red/green stereo glasses with the red lens on the right eye. The date/time for this image was 15 Sepember 1988 16:18:55 UTC. Credit: NASA. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |
| "UTC 2" by A. Carlos Herrera Commentary: "Universidad Tecnológica de Coahuila. Flash For Mexico (April 2003)." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "UTC": Feccas-utc. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "UTC"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Chinese | 转存时间链. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 協定世界時 (Coordinated Universal Time). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | きょうていせかいじ (Coordinated Universal Time). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | utcay.(various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words containing "UTC": butch, butcher, butchered, butcheries, butchering, butcherly, butchers, butchery, butches, caoutchouc, caoutchoucs, clutch, clutched, clutches, clutching, clutchy, crutch, crutched, crutches, crutching, cutch, cutcheries, cutchery, cutches, dutch, dutchman, dutchmen, escutcheon, escutcheons, grutch, grutched, grutches, grutching, hutch, hutched, hutches, hutching, mutch, mutches, mutchkin, mutchkins, nautch, nautches, nutcase, nutcases, nutcracker, nutcrackers, outcaper, outcapered, outcapering, outcapers. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: cut. | |
| Words within the letters "c-t-u" | |
-1 letter: ut. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-t-u" | |
+1 letter: cult, curt, cute, cuts, duct, scut, tuck. | |
+2 letters: acute, butch, caput, centu, chute, clout, count, court, couth, cruet, crust, cubit, culet, culti, cults, curet, curst, cutch, cuter, cutes, cutey, cutie, cutin, cutis, cutty, cutup, ducat, ducts, dutch, educt, eruct, hutch, ictus, mulct, mutch, recut, scout, scuta, scute, scuts, stuck, teuch, touch, truce, truck, tucks, tunic, uncut. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Photo Album 6. Images: Digital Art 7. Expressions 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Abbreviations 11. Acronyms 12. Derivations | 13. Anagrams 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
