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Timekeeping (Clocks, Horology, Methods, Standards)

OH NO!!! :shock: Just when we thought this stupid idea had been lost in the long grass, it raises its ugly head yet again:

Clocks could move forward one hour as Government considers adopting continental time
Britain has moved a step closer to adopting continental time by putting clocks ahead by an hour after the Government performed a u-turn to back a Bill paving the way for the change.
By David Millward, Transport Editor
6:45AM GMT 03 Jan 2012

Ministers have agreed to support the measure drawn up by Rebecca Harris, Tory MP for Castle Point, which would see a detailed study being carried out by the Government on the impact of the change.
Her Private Member’s Bill comes before the Commons later this month and, given the Government’s support, is expected to proceed unless it is talked out by opponents.

Should the new arrangements be adopted, the clocks would not be put back in October. They would, however, be put forward by one hour the following March, as normal.
Then in October of the following year, the clocks would be put back by one hour.
This would mean that dawn and dusk will take place one hour later than they do at the moment, leading to lighter evenings and darker mornings.

The original version of the Bill, which was opposed by the Government, would have triggered an automatic trial of what is known as Daylight-saving time if a study found that the benefits outweighed the disadvantages

But following negotiations with ministers the revised version has put in additional safeguards before any trial takes place.
Under the amended Bill, any changes would then have to be supported by both Houses of Parliament, should the independent study support pushing the clocks forward.

The devolved Governments in Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh would also have to be persuaded to back the change. Until now putting the clocks forward has been opposed in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

David Cameron has in the past been agnostic about whether the clocks should go forward on a permanent basis, arguing that those who supported the change should “make the case” for the reform.

Ed Davey, a business minister told The Daily Telegraph: “This is a step on the way to enable the debate to continue based on evidence from a detailed study,” he said.

In the past strongest support for the proposals has come from the Department for Transport after its road safety strategy showed that the change could cut road deaths by 80 a year.
The study, by the TRL, formerly the Transport Research Laboratory, also estimated that 212 fewer people would be seriously injured.
Even in Scotland, where winter mornings would be darker, it is estimated that there would be a fall in casualties.

The Department for Transport also believed that the switch would also save energy, cut carbon emissions and improve the quality of life.
“There are so many arguments in favour. Successive transport ministers have said that this would have significant road safety benefits,” Rebecca Harris said.
“There are other benefits such as longer evenings enabling people to take more exercise.”
She said lighter evenings would also benefit the tourism industry, which would have the benefits of lighter evenings.

The proposals were backed by Robert Gifford, Executive Director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety.
"Lighter evenings in winter will lead to fewer road deaths and injuries. This is because more people are killed and injured in the evening in winter than in the morning and because the human eye finds it harder to detect movement as it grows darker.”

However those who oppose the change point out that a previous trial in which the clocks were not put back in October, leaving Britain one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, was abandoned after three years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/new ... -time.html

If you get more road deaths and injuries during darkness, then they'll occur when it's dark, whichever end of the day that is. Some people just can't seem to come to terms with the fact that winter days are much shorter than summer ones. :evil:
 
rynner2 said:
Changes to the world's time scale debated
By Rebecca Morelle, Science reporter, BBC News

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15546124

British scientists preparing to fight to keep mean time at Greenwich
British scientists are prepared to launch a defence of Greenwich Mean Time ahead of an international decision on whether the world should move to strict atomic time instead.
By Nick Collins, Science Correspondent
1:17PM GMT 13 Jan 2012

The move would eliminate the need for 'leap seconds', which are quietly added to global timekeeping systems every few years to ensure we remain exactly in sync with the rotation of the Earth.

At a meeting of the International Telecommunications Union in Geneva next week, representatives from 190 countries will gather to vote on whether or not to stop using this system and align ourselves strictly with atomic time.

This would mean that every 80 years or so we would move about a minute further away from GMT, the method first adopted in Britain in 1847 and used by the rest of the world before the introduction of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) – essentially the same measurement – in 1972.

It would cut the link between our time and the rising and setting of the Sun, and cause us to gradually drift away from Greenwich Mean Time, judged by when the Sun crosses the Greenwich Meridian.

The problem lies in the fact that the Earth's rotation is irregular and is gradually slowing down by about two thousandths of a second every day.
This means that atomic clocks, which measure the length of a second with extreme accuracy based on reactions in caesium atoms, are ever so slightly out of kilter with astronomical time.
Additional seconds are added to the time signal when needed to account for this deviation, with 24 having been used since they were first introduced in 1972.

Britain remains determined to defend the traditional method of timekeeping, insisting that the inconvenience of adding leap seconds is nothing compared with the difficulty of adding additional minutes or hours further down the line when our gradual deviation from astronomical time would become noticeable.
But a host of other countries including the USA and China are set to vote in favour of the move because it would eliminate the need to regularly update the world's clocks.

Debate on the issue has been rife for many years but it is thought that this meeting could finally mark the demise of GMT with the majority of nations favouring the move.

Peter Whibberley of the National Physical Laboratory, who will represent the UK at next week's meeting, said the switch would mean we could no longer refer to UK time as GMT.
"One you break that link UTC would just drift away from GMT and you would have to refer to it as UTC", he said.
"The problem is, once you have broken that link there is no way to restore it, it is just too difficult.

"We have had leap seconds for the last 40 years so we can handle them, but there is no equipment in the world that could handle a leap minute or hour ... it could be 200 years down the line but it would be just impossible."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/scie ... nwich.html
 
Time experts debate whether to abolish the leap second
By Rebecca Morelle, Science reporter, BBC News

The future of the world's time is being debated at a meeting in Switzerland.
Experts at the International Telecommunication Union are deciding whether to abolish the leap second.

This is an extra second that is added every few years to keep time measured by atomic clocks in sync with the time based on the Earth's rotation.
Countries such as the Unites States, France and Germany want to lose the leap second, but the UK, along with China and Canada, wants it to stay.

The proposal to eliminate leap seconds will be discussed on Thursday afternoon at the Radiocommunication Assembly meeting in Geneva.
If agreement amongst the 200 member states cannot be found, the issue will go to a vote.

Ron Beard, chairman of the ITU's working party on the leap second, said: "This is not a technical issue, it is more a diplomatic one."

etc...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16597191
 
Going back to the Berlin Time proposal:

I generally get up at 0700. At this time of year it's still dark, and time seems to crawl as I wait for daylight. By 0800 the sky is definitely lighter, but motorists would still need lights.

But if the clocks were put back, it would be more like 0900 before we approached daylight here, but in other parts of the UK it would be even worse.

I believe our brains are kick-started by the coming of daylight, and that those who have to travel to work in the dark are more likely to make errors of judgement leading to accidents.

Something to think on during the dark mornings...

Happily, we're nearly a month past the winter solstice now, and soon the lengthening hours of daylight will become much more apparent.
 
Clocks change bill runs out of time in Commons (Oh, the irony!)

A bid to move the UK's clocks forward by an hour for a three-year trial period has failed after the legislation ran out of time in the Commons.
The Daylight Savings Bill would have seen the UK adopt Central European Time, with BST plus one hour in summer and GMT plus one in winter.
But determined opposition from MPs meant it failed to make progress within the time limit for debate.
Many of the objections focused on the impact of a change on road accidents.

Conservative MP Rebecca Harris's Private Members Bill, if adopted, would have meant that for one autumn, the clocks would not go back, synchronising the UK with much of Europe and meaning that British Summer Time (BST) would effectively continue throughout the winter.
The following spring the clocks would go forward to BST plus one hour, or two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) - something which has been called "double summertime".

Ms Harris - and other advocates - cite a range of advantages to lighter evenings, including promoting sports and tourism, and reducing energy consumption.

But for years the case in favour of change has struggled because of opposition in Scotland and northern England where it would leave some of the northern-most areas without daylight until 10am during the winter months.
Critics say this would make the lives of outdoor workers harder and increase road accidents due to the darker mornings - although those in favour of a change argue it would reduce accidents in the evenings. :roll:

The bill faced determined opposition from a group of MPs, principally Conservative and Scottish National Party, who were determined to stop it. After tabling many amendments, they spoke at length in support of them, ensuring the bill ran out of time.
While it is not yet killed off, any future progress would likely depend on ministers deciding to give it support.

Conservative MP Christopher Chope said the bill's "Achilles' heel" was that it proposed a trial, despite Scottish opposition.
"My concern is that if Parliament changes the time zone for the United Kingdom against the wishes of the people in Scotland that is going to give extra ammunition to those people in Scotland who are campaigning for an independent Scotland," he said.
(Ooh, 'eck, we're getting cross-threaded again!)
He also said: "I think we're in danger of embarking on a course that's going to waste an enormous amount of public money and time of government."

The SNP's Angus MacNeil said the bulk of Scottish opinion was against a change and "if there is any perception of high-handedness from Westminster we will probably see last week's figure of 1,000 new members for the SNP being dwarfed".

But Labour MP Tom Harris backed a trial, adding: "It is ridiculous and very dangerous to conjure up some kind of false division, some false sense of grievance.
"This isn't about Scotland versus England, this is about looking at the evidence for a case for improving the lives of people throughout our nation."

Business Minister Edward Davey said the government would consult with the Welsh and Scottish governments over any proposed trial and would not expect to proceed if there was clear opposition.

Many other MPs also argued in favour of passing the bill to allow a trial.
Conservative Bob Stewart said it was Parliament's "duty" to investigate any possible move that could reduce road deaths and injuries.

Lib Dem John Leech said the evidence suggested that more accidents happen in the evenings that the mornings, so a change that could make a difference in the evenings was worth looking at.

But the SNP's Eilidh Whiteford said: "Road accidents are far less to do with the amount of daylight than other factors - the way people drive and the weather conditions, for example."

The clocks were moved forward by an hour during World War II to maximise productivity at munitions factories and ensure people got home safely before the blackout.

From 1968 to 1971, a trial was held which saw BST employed all year round, and during that time Northern Scotland saw a net increase in the number of people killed or seriously injured on the roads.

A White Paper said it was impossible to quantify the advantages and disadvantages of the time change and so any prospect of continuing it was abandoned.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16649868

:twisted:
 
This is relevent here:

Spain considers time zone change to boost productivity

Spanish MPs are to consider changing time zones by an hour after a report said this would improve eating, sleeping and working habits.
The document by a parliamentary commission said that "Spain for more than 71 years has not been in the correct time zone".
In 1942, the Spanish dictator General Franco moved Spain onto Central European Time to follow Nazi Germany.

The report says Spain should be in the same time zone as the UK and Portugal.

Spain - on the western edge of Europe - is currently one hour ahead of GMT during the winter and two hours ahead in the summer.

"We sleep almost an hour less than the World Health Organization recommends,'' the commission said.
"All this has a negative effect on productivity, absenteeism, stress, accidents and school drop-out rates.''
It said that following the "wrong clock" explained why Spaniards tended to eat, leave work and go to bed later than their European neighbours.
"Our timetable is determined more by the sun than by the clock. We eat at one o'clock in the afternoon and dine at eight, according to the sun, but the clock says it is three o'clock and 10 o'clock," the text said.

It added that jumping back an hour would bring Spain "into line with Europe in many respects in which we currently differ".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24294157
 
Oh, FFS! The BerlinTime zombie raises its loathsome head again...

UK clocks change trial being considered

The government is considering moving the UK's clocks forward by an hour for a three-year trial period.
Ministers are writing to counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to seek a UK-wide consensus on a trial.
It would see the UK adopt Central European Time, with BST plus one hour in summer and GMT plus one in winter.

But a spokeswoman for the Scottish government said its "established position" was that there was "no case for a change to existing arrangements".

If adopted, the change would mean that for one autumn, the clocks would not go back, synchronising the UK with much of Europe and meaning that British Summer Time (BST) would effectively continue throughout the winter.

The following spring the clocks would go forward to BST plus one hour, or two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) - something which has been called "double summertime".

The move is a response to the Daylight Savings Private Members' Bill put forward by Conservative MP Rebecca Harris.
It calls for a review of the potential costs and benefits of advancing the clocks by one hour, and if the review recommends it, a trial period.

Ms Harris told BBC2's Daily Politics her bill was about "moving an extra hour of daylight from the morning when a lot of us waste it in bed to the evening when we can actually get out and enjoy it and do things after school and work".
Advocates of a change cite a range of benefits to lighter evenings, including promoting sports and exercise and reducing energy consumption.

But for years the case in favour of change has struggled because of opposition in Scotland where it would leave some northern-most areas without daylight until 10am during the winter months.
Critics say this would make the lives of outdoor workers harder and increase road accidents. Northern Scotland saw a net increase in the number of people killed or seriously injured during a trial from 1968 to 1971.

Rebecca Harris MP and Peter Hitchens disagree on whether Britain should move to European time
Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens told the Daily Politics it was not just a problem for Scotland.

"It's not just Highlanders and milkmaids who are going to suffer when this comes in, it's absolutely everybody.
"We'd all in England have breakfast in the dark. Then in the summer it twists the other way so you'd be watching Newsnight and it'd be light outside."

The government opposed Ms Harris's bill when it had its second reading last December on the grounds that it made no provision for consultation with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

But the Department for Business is now tabling amendments relating to the devolved nations which it says will allow Westminster to support it.
Business Minister Ed Davey said it was "only right that we at least look at what the potential economic and social benefits of any change might be".

Prime Minister David Cameron said that "as someone who like playing sport" he had "always been interested in this debate".
"But I've always felt you could only do this as a United Kingdom and there have always been very strong arguments made in Scotland," he said.

A spokesman for the Scottish government welcomed the commitment to consult the devolved administrations formally but added: "The Scottish government's established position is that there is no case for a change to existing arrangements."
And SNP MP Angus MacNeil said any change would have "massive implications for the safety and wellbeing of everyone living north of Manchester".

"It is no secret that Tories in the south want to leave Scotland in darkness, but fixing the clocks to British summertime would mean that dawn wouldn't break in Scotland until nearly 9am," he said.

But Scotland's farming lobby, NFU Scotland, said while it was "nervous" about the potential impact, the time was right for a full, independent analysis.
According to Whitehall sources, the Scottish government will get an "absolute veto" on the proposals.

That has annoyed the Conservative MP Tim Yeo, chairman of the Commons energy and climate change committee who tabled a bill in 2007 aimed at getting the clocks moved forward by one hour.

He said: "It's feeble to say that this change is the right thing to do but they will only do it if Scotland says yes. This is far too important an issue to allow the Scottish tail to wag the British dog."

The Welsh government said it would respond shortly to the UK government's correspondence, adding: "Given the impact of any change to the current system, it is important that all factors are taken into account."

The clocks were moved forward by an hour during World War II to maximise productivity at munitions factories and ensure people got home safely before the blackout.

Following the 1968 to 1971 trial, when BST was employed all year round, a White Paper said it was impossible to quantify the advantages and disadvantages of the move.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15490249

These dabbling dimwits fail to realise that nature provides light and darkness, and fiddling about with the clocks will not make the winter days longer (or warmer). The whole idea is preposterous.
 
These dabbling dimwits fail to realise that nature provides light and darkness, and fiddling about with the clocks will not make the winter days longer (or warmer). The whole idea is preposterous.

Indeed. Here in North Wales the proposals would mean it not getting properly dark until nearly midnight in midsummer, while making mornings dark in the winter.

Of course you have to make a choice for te winter, dark mornings or dark evenings, and I preferred the situation of dark mornings, but I'm not a farmer.

I smell the influence of the EU behind this - and in any case anything Tim Yeo is for I'm against, on principle :) .
 
So in the winter sunrise here would be at 9:30am and sunset around 5 pm.. It's still going to be dark in the mornings and the evenings so how exactly does it help? In the summer it's already light until after 9pm at least so the "extra time for sports" argument doesn't really work.. :roll:

Also here in the north we have this new invention known as "the light bulb" which means I can stay up as late as I want and still be able to see what I'm doing.

And when did changing our time zone become such an important issue?
 
The extra time for sports would, presumably, be during spring and autumn, when it's warm enough to play outside in the evening, but not light enough.

It's not just sport, either - I don't know about everyone else, but I get quite depressed at the thought of coming home from work in the dark for 4 months of the year. Two months after the shortest day, I am finally just getting home before dusk has settled (but still can't do anything outdoorsy afterwards). By my calculation, I have until October 25th to enjoy this situation, and then I will be commuting both directions in the dark once more. Going to work in the dark isn't as bad as coming home in the dark, for me at least, so I'd be a fan of a 1 hour advance of the clocks, as it would reduce the misery by about 2 months!

(edited for emphasis)
 
I do find it strange we don't put the clocks forward until end of March - its asymmetrical. The US puts its clocks forward at the beginning of March, which seems slightly more rational , albeit in a system which lacks logic in the first place.

After all, if we are worried about kids going to school in the dark (and I can't see why that is different to coming home in the dark) why not just make the school day an hour shorter in the depths of winter?
 
Russian clocks go back for last time

Russia will turn back its clocks for the last time on Sunday to permanently adopt winter hours.
It will also increase its time zones from nine to 11, from the Pacific to the borders of the European Union.

For the last three years, Russia experimented with keeping permanent summer time, but it proved to be highly unpopular with many Russians.
The Soviet Union introduced Daylight Saving Time in 1981.

In 2011, then President Dmitry Medvedev introduced measures to reduce Russia's time zones to nine, and to keep summer time all year round.
Russians put their clocks forward one hour but did not put them back in winter time.
Changing times in the seasons disrupted people's biorhythms and even upset cows, Mr Medvedev said.

However, during winter many Russians in the north complained about living in darkness, where there are fewer hours of sunlight closer to the Arctic circle.

At a news conference in Moscow, representatives of the Russian Academy of Sciences said that Europe would now be closer as the difference between the capital and Greenwich Mean Time would only be three hours.

The deputy director of the Geography Institute, Arkady Tishkov, said he was against the latest change because he believed it was carried out to please advertisers as it would result in, he believes, more people watching television.

When Crimea was annexed by Russia from Ukraine in March, Crimea's time was adjusted to match Moscow time (GMT +4).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29773559
 
I've never understood the "school children going to school in the dark" argument about changing the clocks. I grew up in the frozen North of Scotland - and still live there - and it was dark when I went to school in winter anyway. It doesn't get properly light till between half 9 and 10 in midwinter and it would be properly dark by home time at 4; I have a particularly vivid memory of sitting in the chemistry classroom at secondary school watching the buses to take us home lining up outside in the dark with their lights on. None of the kids I grew up with came to any harm travelling to and from school in the dark, although it can be a bit miserable. That's just the reality of life above 56 degrees North. Conversely in midsummer it's light by 04:30 and doesn't get dark till after 23:00. Arguments about changing the clocks in the UK always seem to take a very English-centric view when in reality there's nothing that could be done to make better use of daylight at higher latitudes. Dare I say it, if Scotland had voted for independence then the English could have done whatever they liked with their clocks.
 
It's all a very strange way of thinking. Don't like the short evenings? Get up earlier. Work 8 till 4 instead of 9 to 5. Obviously not all individuals can do that, but the government could - it would would be a lot less disruptive than messing about with the clocks.

After all mid-day is when the sun is at its zenith, not when the clock strikes 12. And no amount of silly fiddling with clocks is going to actually increase the amount of daylight.
 
It seems that it's not just me and Cochise who find fiddling with the clocks a pointless pain:
Let’s stick with GMT. There’s no escaping the dark side of time
David Rooney
28 October 2016 • 7:49pm

What is wrong with Greenwich Mean Time? For a century, we have moved away from it each year as we enact the ritual of British Summer Time. Daylight saving nearly didn’t happen, rejected by two parliamentary select committees. One astronomer said people should get up “according to sense and the sun”. But politics stepped in when Germany tried it in 1916 and Britain followed hastily. The advance and retreat of the clocks remains a bone of contention.

There is always a politics of time. When sundials were first installed in Rome, citizens rejected the new time discipline. “Confound him,” exclaimed Plautus, “who in this place set up a sundial to cut and hack my days so wretchedly into small pieces!”. Until the 17th century, clockmakers in Europe - such as the creator of one the earliest astronomical clocks to depict a Copernican sun-centred universe in the Science Museum’s forthcoming Mathematics: The Winton Gallery - feared persecution for heresy.

British clocks gradually standardised to GMT from the 1830s because of the needs of the railways, but it was Victorian politicians’ concerns about licensing hours that led to legislation. An international conference in 1884 proposed Greenwich as the world’s prime meridian. The fallout was immense. For decades, the definition of time in France was ''Paris Mean Time retarded by nine minutes and 21 seconds’’ – Greenwich Mean Time by another name, and a splendid piece of diplomatic footwork. Arguments still rage over time zones.
...

Infrastructure now runs on the super-accurate time kept by atomic clocks. But atomic and earth-rotation time do not run in perfect sync, so we have a system of ''leap seconds’’, which keep them tied together.

At least, it does for now. The leap second is under threat from technologists in industries such as banking where time-stamping is critical. Human operators inserting leap seconds can make mistakes and the argument goes that we should simplify matters, keeping atomic time only. But this would mean severing the connection with earth-rotation time.

More noticeable than an occasional second would be the changes if Britain moves to Central European Time, or Double British Summer Time (DBST). This has been tried before, as has staying one hour ahead of GMT all year. Both experiments ended because shifting away from GMT caused as many problems as it solved. While DBST might benefit south-east England, people in the North, Scotland and Northern Ireland face even darker mornings.

Perhaps British Summer Time itself was a step too far. In 1970, the novelist AP Herbert proposed its abolition. His “painless plan” was to change local working hours instead of the clocks, getting the benefits of daylight saving such as accident reduction, but with fewer side effects. It was an argument for localism that sounds remarkably fresh today. :p

The further we move our time away from “sense and the sun”, the more people have fought over the temporal politics. We can solve our problems without hiding behind the face of the clock.

More interesting stuff on page.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...nting-british-summer-time-was-a-huge-mistake/
 
In 1970, the novelist AP Herbert proposed its abolition. His “painless plan” was to change local working hours instead of the clocks, getting the benefits of daylight saving such as accident reduction, but with fewer side effects. It was an argument for localism that sounds remarkably fresh today.

Yes. I have never understood the notion that particular time systems were cruel to Scots farmers or whatever - just let it be known what your chosen business hours are and stick to them; strict boundaries are less important than local custom anyway. You can't assume everyone in Spain observes siesta! :)
 
BMH-British Medieval ‏@BritishMedieval 1d1 day ago
Spare a thought for volunteers working tirelessly through the night to move the stones back 1 hour at various stone circles around Britain.

Cv71Y4nXgAA_dZf.jpg
 
Not quite seeing how we loose 50% of our days....or....do you mean we're only awake for 8hrs of these 24hr Xmas days?? No...thought I had it, but I don't.
I've forgotten how I worked it out now.

Can someone do a quick calculation based on being awake for 16 hours on Xmas day and living for 70 years - how much Christmas do we live through?
 
Rynner2,

..(I had hoped this thread would delve into the philosophy of time, but what the heck...

The Swiss, famous for their timepieces and their punctual trains, have a saying..

If your train is supposed to arrive at the station at, say, 12:15 hours.

You glance at the station clock and it says 12:15 hours. But the train hasn't arrived.

This can only mean one of two things.

It isn't a Swiss train or it isn't a Swiss clock.

INT21
 
The Swiss, famous for their timepieces and their punctual trains, have a saying..
Fascinating. I had no idea that there was such a specific thing as a Swiss Railway Clock . I just thought this was a minimalist universal clockface design.

It's not....it's a 1944 Mobatime Mondaine
250px-BahnhofsuhrZuerich_RZ.jpg

Apple Computers paid $22.4M just to use the visual design on their iPhones etc.

But just listen to this.....the Swiss Railway Network SBB stops time every minute! Seriously!! For about 1.5 seconds...

"The station clocks in Switzerland are synchronized by receiving an electrical impulse from a central master clock at each full minute, advancing the minute hand by one minute. The second hand is driven by an electrical motor independent of the master clock. It requires only about 58.5 seconds to circle the face, then the hand pauses briefly at the top of the clock. It starts a new rotation as soon as it receives the next minute impulse from the master clock. This movement is emulated in some of the licensed timepieces made by Mondaine".

This is fantastic fact....that means that (in a sense) for over half-an-hour every day time stands still across the whole Schweizerische Bundesbahnen! Wunderbar!!
 
I think this fits here.

Spain’s government will consider reversing a decision taken by dictator Francisco Franco and moving the country’s clocks back one hour to normalise its working hours, the Spanish labour minister said on Monday.


Spain was originally in the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) zone along with Britain and Portugal, with which it is geographically in line, but about 70 years ago Franco shifted Spain’s clocks one hour ahead to be in line with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Supporters of moving the clock back one hour say it would improve Spain’s weak productivity and allow for work and family life to better fit together. ...

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/worl...one-hour-to-normalise-working-hours-1.2902981
 
Doesn't time fly - here we go again!
New Year delayed by one second
30 December 2016

A "leap second" will be added to this year's New Year's countdown to compensate for a slowdown in the Earth's rotation.
The extra second will occur as clocks strike midnight and a time of 23:59:60 will be recorded, delaying 2017 momentarily.

A leap second last occurred in June 2015 and this will be the 27th time it has occurred.
The change is required because standard time lags behind atomic clocks.
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) - responsible for the UK's national time scale - uses the atomic clock to provide a stable and continuous timescale.
Along with other clocks across the globe, it provides the world with its coordinated universal time.

NPL senior research scientist Peter Whibberley said: "Atomic clocks are more than a million times better at keeping time than the rotation of the Earth, which fluctuates unpredictably.
"Leap seconds are needed to prevent civil time drifting away from Earth time.
"Although the drift is small - taking around 1,000 years to accumulate a one-hour difference - if not corrected it would eventually result in clocks showing midday before sunrise."

Atomic clocks use the change of electron energy levels to tell the time.
The time created by the clocks is used in GPS location devices and is used to control the wave frequency of television broadcasts.
The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service in France tracks the Earth's rotation and announces the need for a leap second.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38470682
 
The three states comprising the CONUS west coast are moving to implement Daylight Saving Time year-round. Oregon is the most recent state to pass legislation that would set up such a move. There would still be a need to deal with applicable federal provisions.
Oregon primed to join West Coast effort to make Daylight Saving Time permanent
Oregon's governor plans to sign a bill that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent there as part of an effort among several West Coast states.

A proposal approved by the state legislature earlier this week would abolish the one-hour time change from standard time to Daylight Saving Time for the state, except in the areas of Oregon that are within the Mountain Time Zone. ...

Even with Brown's approval, however, the proposal would still need to clear several other hurdles before it could take effect. ...

First, the legislation mandates that it would not go into effect unless both California and Washington approve similar laws. Last month, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law a bill that allows the state to observe Daylight Saving Time year-round, and in California, voters approved a ballot measure last year that allows the state's legislature to make Daylight Saving Time permanent by a two-thirds vote. A bill is currently making its way through the legislature.

Should the two states, as well as Oregon, approve such laws, they would then need authorization from Congress to become exempt from the Uniform Time Act of 1966, which established the system of uniform Daylight Saving Time throughout the US. ...

SOURCE: https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/07/politics/daylight-saving-time-oregon-kate-brown/index.html
 
I don't recall anyone trying this before - officially going "time-free" and dispensing with clock time during a period when the sun is constantly "up".
Norway islanders want to go ‘time-free’ when sun doesn’t set

Residents of a Norwegian island where the sun doesn’t set for 69 days of the year want to go “time-free” and have more flexible school and working hours to make the most of their long summer days.

People on the island of Sommaroey are pushing to get rid of traditional business hours and “conventional time-keeping” during the midnight sun period that lasts from May 18 to July 26, resident Kjell Ove Hveding said Wednesday.

Hveding met with a Norwegian lawmaker this month to present a petition signed by dozens of islanders in support of declaring a “time-free zone” and to discuss any practical and legal obstacles to basically ignoring what it says on clocks.

“It’s a bit crazy, but at the same it is pretty serious,” he said.

Sommaroey, which lies north of the Arctic Circle, stays dark from November to January. The idea behind the time-free zone is that going off the clock would make it easier for residents, especially students, employers and workers, to make the most of the precious months when the opposite is true. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.apnews.com/7cc745c6db794cd789b81e25baa5b8d7
 
Anyone know why all the world's time zones are one hour apart except India, which is half an hour ?
 
Anyone know why all the world's time zones are one hour apart except India, which is half an hour ?

I assumed it was so they could be different to both Pakistan and Bangladesh. There are a few countries round there on half hours. And there's Nepal to the North.
 
Anyone know why all the world's time zones are one hour apart except India, which is half an hour ?

Time zones are fairly arbitrary, in that they're ascribed by individual authorities (typically nations). The Western approach involving zones observing whole-hour offsets from Greenwich / GMT is a relatively recent (20th century) development. Older approaches involved establishing a standard reference location (a la Greenwich, but local) and correlating time standards for the given area / territory (typically a nation state) based on the longitude of that reference location and extending outward to the (e.g.) national boundaries.

Since independence India has insisted on mandating a single time standard / zone for its national territory, extending from an internal reference location. The longitude of India's reference / index location is circa 82.5 degrees east longitude, and the national authorities translated this into a 5.5 hour offset from GMT.

Such oddball offsets aren't limited to India. China also uses a single time zone / standard nationwide. Newfoundland's time standard is set at UTC -3.5 hours. In addition ...

... Iran, Afghanistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, the Marquesas, as well as parts of Australia use half-hour deviations from standard time, and some nations, such as Nepal, and some provinces, such as the Chatham Islands of New Zealand, use quarter-hour deviations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone
 
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