Einstein would disagree. Light travels 18,628 MILES in a tenth of a second. Court ain't that big.

Yes.

Case Play:

SITUATION A: Team A scores. As the official begins a five-second count the official glances at the running clock which reads 6.5 seconds. Team B commits a five second count violation. The official blows the whistle and looks at the clock which reads 1.8 seconds. A timing error is suspected.

RULING: After conferring with the timer and your partners, it is determined that:

a) the clock was prematurely stopped or had malfunctioned.
b) the clock had not malfunctioned and was not stopped until the official's whistle for the 5-second violation.

In a), use the procedure in rule 5.10.2 to correct the clock to 1.5 seconds.
In b), make no change to the clock.

With all due respect, you're wrong. Don't forget, everything is being done simultaneously. You look at the clock and start your count at the same time. If your brain registers 5.3, then at the time your eyeballs saw it and you started your 5-second count, the time was about 5.4 (if u believe science).

I'm not using my count to make the change or a fraction of a second in either direction. Accuracy across 5 or 10 seconds is just not high enough to correct such small differences.

If after starting a count at 5.3, someone gets to 5 and the clock still shows 1.6, one of a few things happened: the count was fast, the official observed the wrong time, the clock started late, or the clock stopped early. If the clock was already running, it can't be that the clock started late. It is very unlikely that clock stopped early. It happens but 99% of the clock errors deal with the starting of the clock or not stopping it in time.

So, that leaves us with two most probable options that are both mistakes by the official.

Regardless of the difference in the count vs what came off the clocks, if you don't know that it was not running at a time when it should have been, I don't think you can say that it is an obvious timing mistake when the difference is on the order of 1 second.

Only if you believe pseudo science. Even if you take 10 seconds to process what was on the clock, it was still 5.3 when you observed it. Take an old-style photo of the clock, get the negatives developed and printed after 3 days. What will be on them? The time that was actually on the clock when the observation was made.

The delays of the brain at the observing, starting and stopping of the clock will cancel each other out thus making all of this irrelevant.

I thought it was a given in the OP that the clock stopped early. If not, I agree with you.

And, I had the clock start early (when a missed FT hit the floor, and not when the ball was touched) this week. The ball was then immediately batted out of bounds. I saw the clock start early, saw the time when the ball was touched, and saw the time when the ball hit OOB. I took .5 off the time when the FT was shot, reset the clock, and off we went.

Were my observations correct? I think so. WOuld someone else have observed something different? Possibly.

(And, it all happened with < 10 seconds to go in the quarter).

I suppose it could be read that way. I read to to say that when he got to 5 and called it, he looked up ans it was stopped at 1.6, which didn't make sense.

I find it interesting that Case Book 5.10.1 SITUATION B states:". . . There is no provision for the correction of an error made in the official's accuracy in counting seconds."

. . .Kinda makes all our machinations on the subject moot, don't ya think? . . .

Different issue.

That is covering the case where an official calls a count-based infraction too soon or too late, such as calling a 10 second count after either 8 or 12 seconds have properly elapsed on the clock. The case play is saying that the violation stands regardless of information that indicates that the count is inaccurate.

It is silent about changing the clock to match the official's count when there is no evidence that the clock was started/stopped incorrectly aside from it being different than the officials count.

I'm aware of the specific context of the Case play involved.
It seems the discussion here is in regards to a coach or other party thinking that a correction must be made, and the procedure to make such correction.
5.10.1 A refers to the rule, and having "definite information." 5.10.1 D and 5.10.2 refer to "definite knowledge."
Still, the entire rule allows for the less than accurate counting by the covering official, to serve as "definite information/knowledge," and on the less than perfect operation of the timing device and its control, by the Timer, as being precise.
Thus, elements of less than perfect precision are inherently part of the entire process, but by rhetoric are accepted as accurate.

It seems that the time-worn phrase applies: "Sometimes ya just gotta officiate the game."

You just don't get it. None of us here can explain it to you because you suffer from "you know everything".

The rules allow for some "human" discrepancy from when the official blows the clock dead to when it ACTUALLY stopped. For most of us it a few tenths to maybe even a half a second.

In the second instance the timer said they stopped it when they heard the whistle and that accounts for a .3 second differential. We can live with that. IF the time says they stopped it before then we change it. You are not going to see a 1 second lag in this instance. In my experience it's about .1-.3.

Your pseudo gibberish science and logic does not work here. It will not work in any game I work, and it makes no sense. You can try and confuse things but it doesn't work.

Actually, the rules don't. Lag time, where it was acceptable for the clock to run slightly after the whistle, was taken out of the rules several years ago. Now, the clock is expected to be stopped on the whistle. If the official observes ANY time that elapses from the clock after the whistle that time is to be restored.
That, too, is incorrect. The situation referenced in the second part of that case has nothing whatsoever to do with the clock being stopped shortly after the whistle. If that were the case, it would have to have run to too long to 1.2, not stopped early at 1.8. Instead, is talking about the situation where the clock stops exactly on the whistle for a 5 count but less than 5 came off the clock. It is referring to the official's count being official even if it is not precise. It is saying that the the clock is not corrected because, even though the official's count was too fast and is considered official, no error was made with the clock since it was started correctly and stopped correctly (on the whistle). The official's count was just too fast.
If you're going to jump someone's case, you should at least be right.

I do get it. Did you read my post??!! What you said is exactly what I said. In the first instance change it, in the second instance, make no change. So, we must suffer from the same thing. My only point has been - ask the timer.