Thanks for posting that video. Very interesting. I had no idea how time zones came about.
Way OT - Why do we need time zones?
- Thread starter Nitwit
- Start date
Auden, from As I Walked Out One Evening:
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
‘In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
‘In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
Having time zones gives everyone world-wide a shared experience, of sorts. Imagine reading a Russian novel and they're talking about eating lunch at midnight. Or taking an evening stroll... at 8 am. Ditto for American movies overseas.
And then there's when do you start the next day? If we're all using the same time, does a new day worldwide start at the same time (midnight)? If so, my new day may start in the middle of the night, or mid morning, or late afternoon depending on where in the world I am. If you make it local, like you're suggesting people still get up following the sun, well that means some peoples new day starts at midnight. Some start at 5 am, etc. To standardize what time the new day starts, we'd probably create standardized zones. Everyone in this area starts the new day at midnight. Everyone here at 5 am, and so on. So now we have day zones instead of time zones. I think I'll stick with time zones.
And then there's when do you start the next day? If we're all using the same time, does a new day worldwide start at the same time (midnight)? If so, my new day may start in the middle of the night, or mid morning, or late afternoon depending on where in the world I am. If you make it local, like you're suggesting people still get up following the sun, well that means some peoples new day starts at midnight. Some start at 5 am, etc. To standardize what time the new day starts, we'd probably create standardized zones. Everyone in this area starts the new day at midnight. Everyone here at 5 am, and so on. So now we have day zones instead of time zones. I think I'll stick with time zones.
OK...that's pretty random.
^^^ The logic behind the decision of the 9th circuit court of appeals^^^^
I used to have three of these to take care of- had to wind and check and record each day how far in seconds each was off from GMT, which was their time zone wherever we were.
Daylight savings - be careful here. It's actually preferable for most to get those later sunsets - and the later sunsets you get on daylight time vs. standard time.
I guess I'm proposing adding MORE complexity to the system, but what should be done:
(1) the eastern halves of our current time zones (cities like NYC, Chicago, Denver, all of California): they shift over one time zone to the east and stay on Standard Time all year.
(2) the western halves of our current time zones (cities like Detroit, Kansas City, Salt Lake City): they stay in their current time zone, and DO take part in Daylight Savings.
This eliminates the 4:30 PM December & January sunsets which are so depressing in cities like NYC, Chicago and Denver. It would be a get confusing though: Detroit & NYC would be on the same time for 8 months of the year, but 1 hour apart for 4 months of the year.
There's actually a bill currently in the Colorado legislature to do just as I propose: go to Central Standard Time year-long. The current problem is that even if it passes --- the US Department of Transportation will never approve it. There are 4 counties in Kansas that are on MST/MDT and Colorado going to year-round CST would make those Kansas counties a "time zone island" (which the US Department of Transportation does not allow).
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You're not forcing people to be nocturnal. They would still get up around sunrise and go to bed when it's dark. It's just that sunrise could occur at any hour depending upon where you start the 24 hour clock. So the sun might rise at 2pm for example in one location and 2 am in another.
If people never traveled it's an idea to which they may adapt. But say someone from Los Angeles made a business trip to London. They'd need to figure out what time people get up and go to work among other things. The Angelino may be used to getting up at 1500 hours while the London wake up time would 0700 hours. Yes, he could set his alarm for the London wake but that's essentially what people are already doing when they reset their watches to local time. Getting up at 7:00AM is an easy concept to grasp no matter where you are in the world
Also, a switch would need to be made to military time since using AM (ante meridiem) and PM (post meridiem) would be totally illogical.
Elbridge Gerry would be proud of that map.Check out this time zone map of the US from 1913. Not sure why the jagged delineation on the western edges of the Eastern and Central zones.
Futurist and science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke subscribed to that theory. He lived in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) but basically functioned on Greenwich Mean Time.
Listen to this 1976 interview and see how futuristic his thoughts were. He predicted communication satellites back in 1945. In this interview he basically describes personal computers, email, and the worldwide web when he talks about how everyone will communicate through one device exchanging text, pictures and video. He also talks about how ubiquitous mobile communications would become and the elimination of time zones.
Just do what I do: Keep telling yourself that someone smarter than you has it all figured out and knows what's going on.
Check out this time zone map of the US from 1913. Not sure why the jagged delineation on the western edges of the Eastern and Central zones.
Compare that to today's U.S. Time zones. It's bizarre that people living in the western end of Michigan's Upper Peninsula (except for a few counties) are an hour ahead of people directly south in Wisconsin and Illinois. And look at the way Idaho is split.
It would be much easier. No more confusion (ie missed conf calls, "is that local time or our time?" questions, etc etc) caused by time zones.
It would be hugely confusing for airline travelers who wanted to arrive at their destination for dinner or for a morning meeting.
If all you care about is conference calls, sure. But there is a thing called google that makes it pretty easy to figure out what time it is anywhere in the world....
It may not be crazy, or "cray-cray" as my kids say. Do not discount the possibility that it is merely stupid.
Compare that to today's U.S. Time zones. It's bizarre that people living in the western end of Michigan's Upper Peninsula (except for a few counties) are an hour ahead of people directly south in Wisconsin and Illinois. And look at the way Idaho is split.
Imagine crossing a time zone twice a day going to and from work.
You're trying to make time an absolute concept, when it's a concept relative to location and has always been.
The time of day is assigning a quantitative value to how humans have always functioned-- midday approximates that point when the sun hits its highest point in our sky. Of course, if you want to get technical, the sun's not doing anything in our sky, we're the ones rotating toward and away from it.
To accomplish what the OP is suggesting requires that 4.167% of the planet remains on the schedule it is, while the other 95.833% changes to accommodate it. Just that fact indicates how unpopular such a change would be.
The time of day is assigning a quantitative value to how humans have always functioned-- midday approximates that point when the sun hits its highest point in our sky. Of course, if you want to get technical, the sun's not doing anything in our sky, we're the ones rotating toward and away from it.
To accomplish what the OP is suggesting requires that 4.167% of the planet remains on the schedule it is, while the other 95.833% changes to accommodate it. Just that fact indicates how unpopular such a change would be.
No one needs to change their schedule. The workday would still begin in the morning and end early evening. People would be awake during the day and asleep during the night. It's not a difficult concept. It's just what hours we choose to use to identify morning. Morning might be 3:00 in one place and 11:00 in another. But the whole world would be 3:00 and the same time! Some places would be dark then and some light. If you live where the sun comes up at 10:00, you might begin work at 11.
The Southern Hemisphere has managed to cope with the "it's hot in February" issue without becoming unglued. I suspect people would be able to handle the clock thing as easily as they handle the calendar thing.
So how would we know when closing time is? How would we know when all women become tens?
I think this is the best argument against it: "It's 5 o'clock somewhere" would no longer hold true!
