Throughout the history of mankind the sun has served as the reference for time-keeping. Thus, the earliest “time-pieces” were sundials. The Bible refers to “the sixth hour” based on twelve hours of daylight. Thus, the sixth hour was high noon (the zenith of the sun). In the days of the sundial nobody worried about time differences between villages, since everyone simply functioned on mean solar time.
It has only been in modern times (within the past three centuries) that we have had anical means of telling time, and only in the 20th and 21st Centuries that we have had electronic (and even atomic) clocks. It has also been within the modern era (from the industrial revolution) that commerce has become wide-spread, and a need for standardization of timekeeping has become essential.
Our current system is based on the zenith of the sun as noon at a meridian known as the prime meridian, which passes through Greenwich, England. This meridian was finally settled upon because it placed the international date line (180o from Greenwich) completely over water. This was deemed necessary because at the international date line the day of the week changes.
With the prime meridian established, the time zones would be 15o apart, since 15o x 24 (the number of hours in a day) = 360o (the circumference of the earth). This system has given us a standard for uniformity of time in each zone, thus eliminating chaos and confusion from city to city.
During the 20th Century, a new-fangled idea came into play (although it is said that Benjamin Franklin first proposed it). The idea was that by arbitrarily setting our clocks ahead one hour we could “save daylight”, that is, have an extra hour of daylight in the evening for recreational and/or other purposes. It was also deemed useful during World War II as an aid in the war effort, and was in fact implemented for that purpose.
More recently, daylight saving time has been invoked on far more controversial grounds; namely, that it could save energy. Thus over the past half century it has been expanded from beginning on the last Sunday of April and ending on the last Sunday of October, to beginning on the first Sunday of Ap[ril and ending on the last Sunday of October, to finally beginning on the second Sunday of March and ending on the first Sunday of November.
While some “experts” in the energy field claim that daylight saving time indeed saves significant amounts of energy, many others, myself included, seriously doubt that claim. Indeed studies purportedly showing that expanded daylight saving time not only hasn't saved energy, but rather has actually cost energy, are reported to have been carried out.
Whatever the facts may be with regard to saving or not saving energy, it can be mathematically demonstrated that daylight saving time for more than half a year (from the vernal equinox to the autumnal equinox) is useless, since there are fewer than twelve hours of daylight during the period from the autumnal equinox and the vernal equinox, and thus nothing is really accomplished by setting the clock ahead during that period. This is true since moving the clock ahead during that period actually takes needed daylight away from people going to work and children going to school early in the morning. This is far less of a problem from the vernal equinox to the autumnal equinox because there are more than twelve hours of daylight, and moving the clock ahead has far less adverse effect in the morning.
But there are other problems with daylight saving time. The biggest of these is that (at least, temporarily) it upsets the human biological clock and circadian rhythm. A school teacher recently told me that the change to daylight saving time disorients her 4th grade class for the rest of the school year. This might well be a valid point, since children are generally used to going to bed after daylight has, for the most part, ended. When we change to daylight saving time, the children must often go to bed and try to sleep while it is still effectively broad daylight.
Additionally, some years ago it was reported during a TV newscast that a study had been carried out showing that on the first Monday of daylight saving time the number of automobile accidents increased by 8-9%, while on the first Monday after the return to standard time automobile accidents decreased by the same 8-9%. If that study is valid and those figures are correct, one might wonder whether accidents in other places such as home and the work place fluctuate at anything like the same rate with the switch to and from daylight saving time. So far as I know no such studies have been carried out other than the one showing the fluctuation in the number of automobile accidents. I would suggest that such studies should be conducted to determine the effect of flipping the clock back and forth on accident rates in all areas of our lives.
It is my considered opinion that standard time should be in effect year-round, and that all of the states should be required to set their time according to their geographical time zones (a condition which is most definitely not in effect at this time). However, if we are going to implement daylight saving time for recreational purposes (and I can think of no other valid use for it), then we should consider invoking it from no earlier than the first Sunday of April to no later than the first Sunday of October for the reasons I have stated above. Personally, I think that if it is instituted only for recreational purposes, we might consider beginning it on the last Sunday before Memorial Day and ending it on the first Sunday after Labor Day, which would cover the traditional recreational season. In any case Daylight Saving time should not be continued on the winter side of the vernal equinox, and the so-called Upton Amendment should be repealed forthwith.
