I grew up in Indiana. You could tell when the time changed because TV shows
came on at a different time. I think that we did not observe DST simply
because it's in the northwest part of the zone, so that the sun would rise
and set pretty late.compared to the coast. The western corners of the state
were on Central Time and observed DST, and a few counties in the SE also
observed DST, so there were effectively three time zones in the state. The
history of civil time in Indiana is pretty complicated, since localities
could decide independently. My mother told me that when she was a girl,
people kept different time even in the same town.
I once saw a book about the history of civil time in the US. There was a
page devoted to each state, mostly pretty small, except for Indiana, which
went on a number of pages. I doubt if all the information is even included
with the localtime modules computers use. It's pretty weird to learn that
they finally caved in on DST. However, my Mom still doesn't have to bother
with it, since she lives in Phoenix now.
One problem with DST is that there is one week a year when North America and
Europe change on different dates, so that for one week a year the time
difference is not the same as the rest of the year. If the US changes the
dates, the problem will be worse. This makes things difficult when trying
to work with people in different countries, setting up teleconferences and
such.
--
John Hynes
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carleton MacDonald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 7:19 PM
Subject: [USMA:35706] FW: RE: kiloseconds for time of day?
A slightly off topic discussion of time .
The railroads showed Standard Time in their timetables prior to the
Uniform
Time Act of 1966, which basically took away the right of every little hoot
'n holler to decide if it would or would not go on Daylight Saving (no
's')
Time. A train would take 40 hours from Chicago to Oakland and half the
towns would be on Daylight Saving Time and half would not be. So of
course
they held to Standard Time, and basically told the public, "Adjust for
your
particular town."
When the Uniform Time Act passed, it required compliance with Daylight
Saving Time, except if the entire state or a significant portion of it
opted
out. The Eastern Time Zone of Indiana opted out (except for the counties
around Louisville, which adopted DST because they were suburbs of that
city), as did Arizona. I don't know the reason for Indiana, but I suspect
Arizona kept out because of orneriness against the federal government.
With
DST now basically uniform, railroads could publish accurate schedules in
DST, and did starting around 1967, and have ever since.
Indiana has now gotten with the program and the entire state will observe
DST beginning in April. The only holdouts are Arizona, Saskatchewan, and
Hawaii. Arizona is a pain for us (but not too many stops), Saskatchewan a
pain for VIA Rail Canada, and we don't run trains in Hawaii so they can go
do what they want.
However, start making days of different length, and now we will have a BIG
problem. For a stop of 2355 on a 24-hour day, that would become 0005 in
the
second day after, if the following day were only 23 hr 50 min long. How
in
the world could we show THAT in a timetable or a reservation system?
The earth's rotation is pretty fixed. That's what a day is. It cannot
change. And the orbit around the sun is pretty fixed, too. That's what a
year is. It cannot change. And the two are not related to each other in
a
decimal matter.
So, with the day and the year untouchable, you can mess with the month,
and
with the hour and the minute. Mess with the second, though, and you are
changing one of the seven base units.
Carleton
_____
From: Bill Hooper [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 10:56
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [USMA:35689] RE: kiloseconds for time of day?
On 2006 Jan 15 , at 11:55 PM, Carleton MacDonald wrote:
Ow. Days of different lengths would make setting up our long distance
train
schedules REALLY fun .
No more difficult than shifting to daylight savings time and back again.
My
father was a railroad man and I remember how we had to keep track of two
times in our household; "our time" and "railroad time". It was never a
problem.
The railroads have since done away with their use of Standard Time when
the
rest of the population goes on Daylight Time. They have found ways to
accommodate the changes with no great difficulty.
If a variable day would be suitable for other purp0oses, such as
decimalizing time of day (with kiloseconds), then I think other little
problems like the railroad schedules would be handled with ease.
Regards,
Bill Hooper
Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA
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