Should the federal government set your clock?

Question

As an amateur astronomer, I have become a passionate hater of daylight saving time and standard time because I believe they are unnatural measurements of the time of day. Therefore, I set my clock to the true solar time of the north-south line that runs through the middle of my house. I still have to operate on the legal time because everyone else does, but I don't believe a clock should tell a different time than the sun indicates. When my clock reads noon, it really is noon by the sun. I also don't think that the federal government has any moral right to tell people how to reckon the time of day. I understand that as travel became faster, there was pressure to standardize time, but should commerce be put before nature or the other way around?

Answer 1

You are being rather silly. Modern clocks have a second that is a constant duration. The solar day varies in a cyclical way throughout the course of a year. The amount of time between culminations of the sun (noon to noon) is NOT exactly 24 hours at any given time. On average it is, but if you want your clock to reflect precise solar time, you would have to reset it every hour to keep up.

In a world where people who are thousands of miles apart need to be able to do things in a schedule, a strict standard for timekeeping is necessary. If you want the ultimate solar timepiece then build a sundial. If you don't like setting your clock by the legal standard, that's fine. But our modern society couldn't work correctly without some kind of standard of time existing.

Daylight Saving time is another issue entirely and there are good points to be made for both sides of that argument.

Answer 2

Your question begs a question in return - do you reset your clock every day? Or to be more precise how many times a day do you reset your clock to remain in close synchronisation with the sun?
Sorry, some kind of standard time is the only usable one even for astronomers!

Answer 3

Yeah! Rebel! Set your clock to whatever time you want! But don't expect the grocery store to be open at 3 am when you think it's 8 am.

Or you could move to Arizona, which doesn't follow daylight savings time, probably because there are so many astronomers there.

Answer 4

I am an amateur astronomer too and I don't care what number is on the clock. I only care when I have to get up. And I do hate getting up early in summer, because that means I have to go to bed early and miss most of the night! Too bad I am not one of those people who can wake up early easily, because predawn conditions are usually very good for observing.

Answer 5

The answer is YES. There is a very interesting history about why the government set a national time beginning about 1883. Railroads needed to run on time. But whose time? Different towns had different standards. Read about it on the URL:

http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/d.html

Answer 6

If you were on a ship you would call it local aparent noon LAN.

Time is closely related to navigation for the determination of longitude. Having a time standard allowed sailors to accurately determine their position by referencing the local apparent noon to a standardized noon time at 0 deg long. (Greenwich England GMT)



Standards allow us to share information with others easily.

Answer 7

Time is a mechanism for social interaction and therefor social control. Ask anyone who punches a clock. You are not free to determine your own time. Set your own clock and calender to pay your taxes and see what happens. Get with it. Its whatever time you're told it is and thats that,.
It should be set by the UN. A USA controled UN.

Answer 8

33

Answer 9

well if u don't reset it, they'll send some "special forces" into ur house to reset it for u LOL

guess u could protest and refuse, but like the calendar, how dictates

Answer 10

I would have to agree that daylight savings time sucks.
But what are you going to do about it!
Forget about it.