Re: Daylight saving time in my region should be...

DST is an example of creating our own problem, and then having funny solutions to fix it. The problem is that day is defined by the sun, but we try to define it with the 24-hour clock. No wonder we have to patch it twice a year, every year, to keep it working right.

Instead the clock should simply be relative to sunrise/sunset. Then, even the notion of daylight saving would make no sense.

Comment on Re: Daylight saving time in my region should be...

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Re^2: Daylight saving time in my region should be... by ww (Archbishop) on Dec 06, 2011 at 03:16 UTC
So that would result in hours of varying duration (from, say, winter to summer)? And minutes would get longer at night, in the winter, except at the equator? And would it be a minute or a second or ?? that defines the period from sunrise to sunset north of the Arctic Cirle in the summer? And how should I calculate my location -- whether with a sextant and slide-rule or with a GPS? Either is going to have a hard time with definitions of units of time "relative to sunrise/sunset."	[reply]
Re^3: Daylight saving time in my region should be... by mertserger (Curate) on Dec 06, 2011 at 10:21 UTC
In the ancient world of Greece and Rome, the day was indeed divided into twelve hours of daylight and twelve of dark so the length of the hour did vary depending on the time of year.	[reply]
Re^3: Daylight saving time in my region should be... by chacham (Prior) on Dec 06, 2011 at 03:58 UTC
Good point. I was focusing on my day not on interacting with others. :) As for hours changing, that has always been the case. Because the clock, that is how people worked, and quite nicely. People worked longer in the summer than the winter, and so on. As for matching up with other people, perhaps the 24-hour clock should indeed be used. Just a thought.	[reply]