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The Folly of “Falling Back” an Hour
Governments need to end the madness that is harming us
Today in Europe, people set their clocks back an hour. Next Sunday, North Americans will set their clocks back an hour. Custom forces people to do so, and sometimes custom is blindly repeating our mistakes. The twice-a-year clock shifting between “standard” and “summer/daylight” times is a prime example.
Clock Time
Our units of time measurement are entirely arbitrary. There is no good reason for the calendar to begin on the First of January. That the solar year is 365 (and a bit) solar days is decided for us, but how we divide it up and label it is purely arbitrary. There’s no necessary reason to have 12 months and 52 weeks.
Likewise, the length of the solar day is decided for us, but how we divide it up and label it is purely arbitrary. We’ve decided, for no necessary reason, to divide the solar day into 24 hours. Could have been 10 hours, could have been 32 hours. Nothing better or worse in any of choice of dividing the day into hours.
“Midnight” and “noon” are roughly tied to the movement of the sun, but solar noon is not clock noon. The solar noon is determined by the location on the Earth and the time of solar year. For example, Detroit and Boston have clock noon at the same clock…
