why do we put the clocks back and forwards?

Answer 1

Daylight saving time (DST), also known as summer time or, daylight savings time, is a widely used system of adjusting the official local time forward, usually by one hour from its official standard time, for the spring, summer, and early autumn periods.

DST is most commonly used in temperate regions, due to the considerable variation in the amount of daylight versus darkness across the seasons in those regions.

Governments often tout it as an energy conservation measure, on the grounds that it allows more effective use of natural sunlight resource in summer time. Since there is less darkness in the "waking day", there is less use of electric lights. Some opponents reject this argument.

Europeans commonly refer to the system as summer time: Irish Summer Time, British Summer Time, and European Summer Time. This is reflected in the time zones names as well, e.g., Central European Time (CET) becomes Central European Summer Time (CEST).

The word "summer" in this context includes most of spring after the spring equinox and nearly all of autumn. Likewise, the word "winter" here includes part of autumn and a few weeks in spring. This varies by time zone, of course, and can change over time as well.

Answer 2

Wasn't it to do with workers in the arms factories in World War 1?
Oh no, that was the other stupid law hung over for a 100 years about pub licensing hours.
Every year at this time we have this ridiculous debate about changing the clocks and every year for the next 1000 YEARS nothing will change.
Politicians are too busy screwing up the country with other laws to bother doing anything about this issue ESPECIALLY when the farming industry and those north of the border want no change.
If we don't like it we can go and live somewhere else and that's exactly what a lot are doing... getting out of this 'politically correct ' country run by lunatics.

Answer 3

It is not farming, years ago we had to take advantage of the weather, available light, so the actual time of day is irrelevant. We would wait for the dew to dry before harvesting and would then work through until it came down again or it was too dark, again the time of day was irrelevant.
When the cows need milking, they need milking, changing the clocks makes no difference to them. You couldn't farm by the clock.
Some say it is to do with kids coming home from school, particularly in the North.
It is not daylight saving either, how can you save daylight? We get what we are given

Answer 4

Daylight saving, i.e. putting the clocks forward in the summer time was a measure introduced during World War 2 to give farmers more daylight hours to harvest crops at a time when imported food supplies were in short supply.

Answer 5

Started, I believe, in Britain in WW2, to align the working day more closely with daylight hours and so save electricity. In "Double Summer Time" clocks used to be put forward/back 2 hours from Greenwich Mean Time with the same purpose in mind - so allowing jobs like farmers getting the harvest in in 'daytime'!

Answer 6

We think the year takes 365/366 days. In Truth its in the first half a bit more and in the second half a bit less. To adjust this discrepancy we turn the clock for and back. But one second after we did that we theoretically back or in front of the real time.
So it is to adjust our time to the biological time. If we would not this we would end up with having midnight at 12 a.m. . It would take loads of years until this happends but it would happen...

Answer 7

During the World Wars, it was started as a measure to reduce energy consumption. I'm not sure how successful it was, but it stuck everywhere except Arizona and Hawaii (the latter because the time between dawn and dusk doesn't vary much all year). Also, Indiana still has yet to figure out what they want to do, which is a major headache for people up there.

Answer 8

Because Greenwich Mean Time was set/calculated in the winter and as the seasons change the incidence of the Sun does too. If Time had been set in the in the Spring or Autumn/Fall then we probably wouldn't alter our clocks by a mere Half an Hour in the summer.

Answer 9

I think it was something to do with farmers being able to have more time in the summer to get the harvest in, and through the war years I think they went to "double-summer-time" much for the same reasons. To use the lighter hours for longer what with it getting light at a damn early hour as well through the summer months .
Personally, I like the dark evenings..... When the clocks go forward it's like jet lag for me!!

Answer 10

Originally it was to save on energy costs, and to enable the farming comminuty to make the most of the daylight without having to get up earlier (clocks go forward in the summer). We used to have double british summertime. Imagine having to get used 2 getting up two hours earlier...!