Daylight Savings Time

[janedavitt]

Does anyone wonder what time it really is right now? You know, if we'd never messed around with the clocks starting back in WW1. I feel like getting a stick, plunging it into snow and seeing when it has no shadow so I know when noon is.

If that isn't how you do it, I will begin a reread of the Swallows and Amazons books right away. I know they do that in Secret Island....

Comments

[green_grrl]

I don't have to worry about DST because Arizona doesn't do it. :D

Hours are an artificial construct, anyway. First there was just midday. Then when clocks were invented, they put 12:00 at midday. But then once there was speedy cross-continental (trains) and instantaneous messaging (telegraph), they had to standardize so that everyone was on the same page, schedule-wise, and time zones were invented. Now it depends upon where your time zone lines are drawn and whether you're closer to the eastern or western end of your zone when your solar noon is. Where I live, solar noon falls at around 12:20. I'd have to live farther east for it to be 12:00 straight up.

[janedavitt]

It is a huge mess!

[bluewolf458]

Personally I don't see the need for it now. At one time, possibly - horses could only work in daylight, harvesting couldn't really start for the day until the dew was off the ground, meaning a longer evening made sense... but now? Where I lived before I moved to where I am now, we were surrounded by arable fields, and the farmer's 'days' were around 2pm - 10pm, with the later work being done in the headlights of the combines. Business doesn't need the hour change. And if they're talking 'road safety', especially for children, my experience as a teacher was that kids were more likely to have a problem in the morning, some of them staggering to school still half asleep, than in the evening - and I think the same goes for adults. I have a friend who thinks that anything earlier than about 10.30am is still the middle of the night (though obviously when she worked she had to be up and about and at work by whatever time they started). I'm the other way - wide awake, up and out with the dog before 5.30am, but I've always flaked out by 9, 9.30pm, even if I didn't get up till as late as 10am.

[janedavitt]

I don't see the need either. It's just a lot of hassle twice a year.

[everbright]

Well, we're getting close to the equinox, so you'd be looking for when the shadow was shortest, not disappeared entirely. The sun sharing a plane with the equator means that it's south of us in North America, so there would still be a short shadow stretching out from the north side of the stick at noon.

Uh, I've been thinking about this.

[janedavitt]

I knew my f-list would have all the science knowledge I lack! ::beams:: It's interesting, isn't it?

[everbright]

Yes!