EU to end daylight savings time

[Anonymouswizard]

What I think is likely to happen is that DST/BST is in operation in the winter as well as the summer, and that will be very silly indeed.

If Brexit doesn't mean we skip the whole thing entirely and stick to BST in the summer and GMT in the winter.

If the UK ends up staying on BST all-year round I vote that we petition Parliment to move Greenwich a time zone west. No use having it be on GMT+1 all year, somebody will just get confused.

Keeping the National Maritime Musuem and a few other things of course, but we'll at the very least have to move that meridian.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

If we're going to change our clocks, we really need to change to the time that is closest to real solar time - so midday is 12, not 11 or 1pm or whatever.

[Kato]

If we're going to change our clocks, we really need to change to the time that is closest to real solar time - so midday is 12, not 11 or 1pm or whatever.

This sounds like a solid system. Every place puts their clocks so at 12 o'clock the sun is at its zenith. This couldn't possibly lead to a whole lot of confusion, right?

How about the total opposite, we all change to GMT and we just adjust work hours accordingly. We just need to get used to working from 3 am to 11 am or whenever... And twice a year you're getting an added/subtracted hour of work if your country decides to do that.

[snowblizz]

This sounds like a solid system. Every place puts their clocks so at 12 o'clock the sun is at its zenith. This couldn't possibly lead to a whole lot of confusion, right?

Which is exactly how it used to be. I am sure quite a few people imagine that'd work today too.

Many places (I suspect) like Sweden changed to "standard time" when railways started connecting the country together.


I don't quite get the angst over time changes, what's wrong in getting a bit more sunlight?

Took me several days to realsie the reason I got hungry at lunchtime was being one hour late.

If we could move closer to CET and thus also reduce the GMT gap to just 1 hour that' be quite swell since I play online a lot with Europeans. Knowing my luck politicians are going to manage to move it another hour in the wrong direction.

[Iruka]

Which is exactly how it used to be. I am sure quite a few people imagine that'd work today too.

Many places (I suspect) like Sweden changed to "standard time" when railways started connecting the country together.


I don't quite get the angst over time changes, what's wrong in getting a bit more sunlight?

For me, winter time means less sunlight, since the sunset comes earlier. I don't care about the sun in the morning, either I sleep or I work. ( Sometimes I go for an early run, but I don't need sunlight for that either.)

[Chen]

I don't quite get the angst over time changes, what's wrong in getting a bit more sunlight?

The first week after the time change is an utter disaster if you have kids who are too young to tell time. They don't care its now 4:30 instead of 5:30, they just know they feel awake. So, you too then, are awake.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I just had a horrible alternate history kind of thought experiment idea that isn't on topic here yet is strangely on topic here: Imagine that when the metric system was conceived they had introduced a new unit of time as well. Either based on decimal fractions of a day (1 day is 1000 millidays?) or on some sort of semilogical sort of natural constant, like the period of a one meter long pendulum (which I think is actually very close to a second, but then the units are called flumps instead of seconds and everything else is based on those). Something like that.

The new time units caught on, because they were well thought out and felt more logical than the current system. By now there were only a few countries in the world that still used some version of those old fashioned seconds and minutes. Imagine trying to keep track of anything happening in a country on the other time system. That would be so much more horrible than any conversation about feet and miles and meters ever, and I'm including that unit conversion conversation at NASA that got a spaceship blown up.

The reason this never happened was probably that time was already kept using a uniform system (be it with a separate time zone for every other town), and the system makes quite a bit of sense for a human living on earth. But still, creepy thought.

On the other hand, it might have forced our hand, pushing the world into accepting a single system of measurements somewhere around the interbellum or so, whichever system that would have been. This is kind of cool to think about, so I figured I'd share it.

[Lord Torath]

I'm ready to end Daylight Savings Time. My alarm clock has an "auto" setting for DST. Sunday morning came around, and it didn't update. So I manually changed the time. Then, some time last night, it finally decided to switch from DST to standard time. Of course, since I'd already reset it...

Let's just say it's a good thing I'm not the only one in my family who gets up at that time, or I'd have been an hour late for work.

[Bohandas]

The problem isn't Daylight Savings Time, the problem is that it's in the wrong half of the year. It's not needed in summer and it's not in effect in winter.

[LibraryOgre]

I don't quite get the angst over time changes, what's wrong in getting a bit more sunlight?

Toddlers do not acknowledge daylight savings time. Did your toddler consistently wake up at 6am? Congratulations, they now wake up at 5am... or 7am. And will take weeks to reset.

Personally, I'm in favor of going to a single time. Pick a place. Call that place's noon 0:00. Everyone follows the same time, but "daytime" is going to vary according to local conditions.

[pendell]

For me, winter time means less sunlight, since the sunset comes earlier. I don't care about the sun in the morning, either I sleep or I work. ( Sometimes I go for an early run, but I don't need sunlight for that either.)

I have just the opposite problem. I want all the help I can to wake up, so the more the better. I also have a bunch of kids at the end of my street who will sometimes sit right smack down in the middle of the road while waiting for the bus. The more light I have, the better chance I have of seeing a middle schooler wearing a dark jacket in the middle of the road zoning out while twiddling with their phone.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Bohandas]

I have just the opposite problem. I want all the help I can to wake up, so the more the better. I also have a bunch of kids at the end of my street who will sometimes sit right smack down in the middle of the road while waiting for the bus. The more light I have, the better chance I have of seeing a middle schooler wearing a dark jacket in the middle of the road zoning out while twiddling with their phone.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

They shoukd start the school day later

[pendell]

They shoukd start the school day later

I suspect the reason they won't is because if they put the students in later, they get out of school later, which means after school activities like sports or music go later, which means school busses potentially driving around smack in the middle of the evening rush.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Other way around. Schools starts when it does so parents can make sure the kids go before work starts.

[Thanqol]

I just had a horrible alternate history kind of thought experiment idea that isn't on topic here yet is strangely on topic here: Imagine that when the metric system was conceived they had introduced a new unit of time as well. Either based on decimal fractions of a day (1 day is 1000 millidays?) or on some sort of semilogical sort of natural constant, like the period of a one meter long pendulum (which I think is actually very close to a second, but then the units are called flumps instead of seconds and everything else is based on those). Something like that.

This literally happened exactly as you describe it. At the exact same time as the Metric system was invented, even, pushed by the same people.

It is a pure historical anomaly that metric weights and measures caught on and decimal time didn't. In the evil alternate reality, the two are flipped and everyone uses decimal time and imperial measures.

[Wardog]

Metric time is arbitrary. Given that time (and date) are based on rotations and cycles, the rational, scientific answer is that they should be measured in radians.

This has the bonus that midday is pi o'clock.

[veti]

This literally happened exactly as you describe it. At the exact same time as the Metric system was invented, even, pushed by the same people.

It is a pure historical anomaly that metric weights and measures caught on and decimal time didn't. In the evil alternate reality, the two are flipped and everyone uses decimal time and imperial measures.

Or maybe because the units of time are just harder to decimalise. The day and the year are both pretty fundamental, there's no way of ignoring either one, but they most inconsiderately don't divide into each other by a power of ten. That's a challenge that metres and kilograms didn't have to worry about.

So even if you say there are now 10 hours in a day and 10 days a week, you're still going to have to work around an anomaly later on. And at that point people are apt to start muttering things like "wasn't it nice when one third of an hour was 20 minutes, rather than this thirty-three point three recurring nonsense?" And pretty soon conclude that the emperor is naked and the new system actually has no advantage over the old.

The division of time into seconds, minutes, hours and all the other arbitrary units we use - is something that just works. It was invented something like 4000 years ago, and no one has come up with any even slightly convincing improvements in all that time. Even weeks "just work", to the extent that cultures as diverse as French, Chinese, Zulu and Maori all use a seven-day division. It's a truly remarkable feat of standardisation already.

[loasmkers]

Getting rid of it sooner or later, but why hasn't the United States acted?

[snowblizz]

Even weeks "just work", to the extent that cultures as diverse as French, Chinese, Zulu and Maori all use a seven-day division. It's a truly remarkable feat of standardisation already.

It doesn't "just work". A lunar cycle is roughly 28 days. If you cut that up into equal chunks you arrive at a 7 day week.


Also for all the talk of the perfectly smoothly functioning 24hrs 7 day 12 month 365 day year keep in mind it actually doesn't. Every culture has had to deal with the fact that time shifts because our splits do not perfectly align to the variations of celestial bodies. Days are not 24 hrs, months aren't 28 days, nor a year 365 days exactly.

We always end up having to tweak it. Ancient cultures added months or weeks. Not so ancient ones days. And we add the odd (micro)second or some such. Beyond the day every 4 years that's not actually every four years becasue you have to skip some in that cycle every century and whatnot.

Say what you want but it's not seamlessly divisible by 30 12 7 24 or 60 either. Decimal time could work equally well and would equally have to be adjusted as our current system does.

[Brother Oni]

The division of time into seconds, minutes, hours and all the other arbitrary units we use - is something that just works. It was invented something like 4000 years ago, and no one has come up with any even slightly convincing improvements in all that time. Even weeks "just work", to the extent that cultures as diverse as French, Chinese, Zulu and Maori all use a seven-day division. It's a truly remarkable feat of standardisation already.

I'd argue that the 7 day week is a complete co-incidence with the nature of human biology.

In China, the Shang Dynasty developed a 9/10 day week called a xun, with 3 xun making up a month.
During the later Han Dynasty, Chinese public officials were legally required to rest once every 5 days, or twice per xun, which made adopting the 7 day Hellenistic system around about the 4th Century AD easier.

They still retained their lunar calendar though, with the occasional leap month to account for time discrepancies.


I can't say for the Zulu or Maori, but I'd be careful about drawing inferences about the inherent universality of a 7 day week where there are possible colonialization influences by another culture which had already adopted the 7 day week.

[Kato]

Hm, this has gotten me curious how widespread the hour/minute / second division was before / apart from what developed out of Babylon... I guess I'll see if I can find something later.

Also, I feel it is a weird coincidence that the meter / second relation was completely random. But I guess if there was intent behind it the meter would be a perfect match.

[Bohandas]

Also for all the talk of the perfectly smoothly functioning 24hrs 7 day 12 month 365 day year keep in mind it actually doesn't. Every culture has had to deal with the fact that time shifts because our splits do not perfectly align to the variations of celestial bodies. Days are not 24 hrs, months aren't 28 days, nor a year 365 days exactly.

And it gets even more confusing when you consider whether one means solar or sidereal measurements

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Hm, this has gotten me curious how widespread the hour/minute / second division was before / apart from what developed out of Babylon... I guess I'll see if I can find something later.

Well, I do know that the Roman Empire divided days into 12 equal parts starting at sunrise and ending at sundown, meaning that "an hour" was different lengths every day of the year, and different lengths in different parts of the Empire any given day. As far as I know, they didn't further divide those 12 chunks into smaller units.

I'm also relatively certain that the concept of (prime) minute and second (minute) was introduced by the French Revolution. While I understand that Babylon might have divided the circle into subdivisions, I don't think time was similarly divided by them - although I know very little about their time keeping practices, so if anyone has any kind of link, by all means.

Grey Wolf

[DavidSh]

I'm also relatively certain that the concept of (prime) minute and second (minute) was introduced by the French Revolution. While I understand that Babylon might have divided the circle into subdivisions, I don't think time was similarly divided by them - although I know very little about their time keeping practices, so if anyone has any kind of link, by all means.

Grey Wolf

I don't know about Babylon, but way back in 1267 or so, Roger Bacon quoted time (in latin) in horas, minuta, secunda, tertia, and quarta. I think this was the result of some kind calculation, not a direct measurement.

There is some evidence of clocks with minute hands in the 15th century.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Well, I do know that the Roman Empire divided days into 12 equal parts starting at sunrise and ending at sundown, meaning that "an hour" was different lengths every day of the year, and different lengths in different parts of the Empire any given day. As far as I know, they didn't further divide those 12 chunks into smaller units.

Really?

How did they even do that? A simple sun dial doesn't support that system, you'd need date dependent markings. (I think? I'm actually having a little trouble picturing stances of the sun right now and whether that fully supports hours always having the same length, it's late over here. 12 is always 12, I'm not too sure about the extremes.)

And then the dates would slowly shift due to the Julian calendar, although that's probably too long term to amount to anything real over the lifetime of the average clock.

[DavidSh]

Really?

How did they even do that? A simple sun dial doesn't support that system, you'd need date dependent markings.

If you use just the shadow of the tip of the gnomon, you can do this. One way is to have the face of the dial be a hemispherical bowl, with the tip of the gnomon being at the center of the bowl. Then the position of the shadow of the tip corresponds pretty directly to the altitude and azimuth of the sun. You can draw (parts of) circles on the bowl indicating the paths of the sun through the sky for various chosen days of the year, and subdivide these circles into hours. You can then interpolate between hour markings for the different chosen days to get hour marking for all days. Archaeologists have found some of these dials.

This also works for a flat horizontal dial face, but the geometry is more complex, in my opinion.

In either case, you don't need to know the date to use the dial. In fact, you can approximately extract a pair of possible dates (example, either one of the equinoxes) by using the dial.

[factotum]

You can draw (parts of) circles on the bowl indicating the paths of the sun through the sky for various chosen days of the year, and subdivide these circles into hours. You can then interpolate between hour markings for the different chosen days to get hour marking for all days. Archaeologists have found some of these dials.

Have you got a link to one of those archaeological discoveries? Curious what these things looked like.

[Brother Oni]

Really?

Yup. It's even included in their army fitness tests - legionary recruits were expected to cover 20 Roman miles (~18.4 modern miles) in 5 summer hours and progress up to 'full pace' which was 24 Roman miles (~22.1 modern miles) in 5 summer hours.

A summer hour varies between 60-75 minutes depending on time of year, so between 5 - 6.25 modern hours. There's an additional adjustment dependent on latitude, but it starts getting complicated.

This was with a full load of 20.5kg (45lbs), so it wasn't necessarily easier to march during the middle of summer, especially in Mediterranean climates.

[Durzan]

Heres how everyone should do it... Do a permanent 1/2 hour shift forward across all nations on the next Daylight Savings Start date (IE Nov 6 2019).

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Really?

How did they even do that?

Poorly, I believe is the answer. Timekeeping in Rome was a rather loose thing. 90% of the people worked the land, and that requires no clocks. And those in the cities divided by day by a sort of unspoken consensus. According to the episode on this topic from The History Of Rome (episode 88, "A Day in the Life"), first came the daily round of begging the patron for spending money, then off to work, or go enjoy public spectacle (chariot racing or games if it is a holiday, trials if it is not), then to the baths for socialising & cleaning, ending up the day by meeting friends to have a group dinner, and finally to bed. When each of those things actually started would not be terrible predictable, but you knew it was happening because you could tell everyone else was moving in that direction.

And then the dates would slowly shift due to the Julian calendar, although that's probably too long term to amount to anything real over the lifetime of the average clock.

No, but it did change enough that by Julius Caesar's time, winter was off by like a month and a half, which Julius Caesar used to his advantage during his civil war against Pompey, performing a naval crossing of the Adriatic that no-one saw coming because it was "in the middle of winter" which in fact happened (IIRC) in October. (Caesar didn't have enough boats to ferry his whole army, though, and the second half of that crossing was a bit more difficult)

Grey Wolf