Quote from: mizerydearia on July 18, 2010, 10:17:05 PM

Quote from: gavinandresen on July 18, 2010, 07:16:03 PM

+ The timestamps in them will be different.

This is not true. I have determined that some blocks have been generated and use the same timestamp as a previously generated block

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=464.0

In fact, it is far from true.

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=441.msg4586#msg4586

Apparently timestamps for newly generated blocks can even have timestamps prior to the last block generated.

Snippets of data extracted from blk0001.dat

Code:

69273 1279655546 779734388429
69274 1279655947 779734388429
69275 1279655761 779734388429
69276 1279656675 779734388429

Code:

69246 1279640200 779734388429
69247 1279640882 779734388429
69248 1279640415 779734388429
69249 1279642645 779734388429

Code:

69239 1279638523 779734388429
69240 1279639005 779734388429
69241 1279638976 779734388429
69242 1279639437 779734388429

Code:

69037 1279540630 779734388429
69038 1279541270 779734388429
69039 1279541269 779734388429
69040 1279541367 779734388429

And here's a more interesting example.
Block 68,462 has timestamp before 68,461 but not before 68,460
Block 68,463 has timestamp before 68,462 AND 68,461
However, block 68,464 corrects things by having a timestamp after all previous blocks.

Code:

68458 1279287594 194933597107
68459 1279287774 194933597107
68460 1279287998 194933597107
68461 1279288077 194933597107
68462 1279288037 194933597107
68463 1279287679 194933597107
68464 1279288393 194933597107

Perhaps in theory it could be possible that a timestamp is assigned to a block that predates all other blocks, even the first one?