World Notes: Nov. 25, 1985

This month the observatory announced that Britain is going off the clock. The problem is cost. Since the 1960s, GMT has been measured by six atomic clocks, accurate to a billionth of a second. Starting next year, the clocks' vacuum tubes, which cost almost $30,000 each, will not be replaced when they wear out. The observatory plans to put the money instead into astronomical research. GMT will have finally been superseded by Coordinated Universal Time, a 13-year-old international standard kept by 150 atomic clocks around the world. Universal Time is maintained by the International Time Bureau, which is based, perhaps fittingly, in Paris.