British Summer Time 2014: Why do Clocks Change?

[Pride Of Cucamonga]

Youngest daughter is on holiday in Iceland - no, not the food shop, we've done all those jokes - and she tells us that Iceland is also on Western European Time but that don't put their clocks forward as we did last night.

Stands to reason when you think about it. If you have 24 hour daylight in summer so why bother to shift the clock?

Exactly right - but surprised they don't shift the clocks for sake of consistency with Europe and North America. Apparently Reykjavik time is useful to pilots etc as always on GMT.

 

[smoggy07]

From what I've seen on the documentary channels on TV UTC (universal coordinated time) isn't actually a real time, apparently they take data from all the atomic clocks based around the world and collate the data in a big house in France and can't tell you what the time is now, but can tell you the exact time on an exact day two weeks ago (because it takes that long to process all the data).

I've been told by a Muslim friend that if we didn't add on leap seconds, leap days to February (on leap years) and didn't change the clocks back and forth we'd be living in the 12th century around about now (I don't know how much truth there is to that and it all sounds like tosh to me but apparently it's what they believe).

I personally think the UK should run on GMT alone, stuff changing the clocks twice a year.

 

[sonnetpete]

From what I've seen on the documentary channels on TV UTC (universal coordinated time) isn't actually a real time, apparently they take data from all the atomic clocks based around the world and collate the data in a big house in France

Yes, and I'm getting fed up with people ringing and asking me what the correct time is.....

I don't know about your Muslim friend's calculations. The Gregorian calendar repeats every 400 years and we have 97 leap days in that time. You can work out the exact maths but roughly if we didn't have leap days we'd have only lost 485 days in the last 2,000 years, about 18 months. The Islamic calendar is on 1435 this year.

The West changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian in 1582 so you'd have to allow for that as well but no way could we lose that much time, even allowing for the fact that this part of rural France is stuck in the late 1950's

As to leap seconds, I'll have to consult with my colleagues as soon as this phone stops ringing.....

 

[smoggy07]

Yes, and I'm getting fed up with people ringing and asking me what the correct time is.....

I don't know about your Muslim friend's calculations. The Gregorian calendar repeats every 400 years and we have 97 leap days in that time. You can work out the exact maths but roughly if we didn't have leap days we'd have only lost 485 days in the last 2,000 years, about 18 months. The Islamic calendar is on 1435 this year.

The West changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian in 1582 so you'd have to allow for that as well but no way could we lose that much time, even allowing for the fact that this part of rural France is stuck in the late 1950's

As to leap seconds, I'll have to consult with my colleagues as soon as this phone stops ringing.....

It was a couple of years ago he told me that and TBH I never bothered looking into it in detail

I've just looked on youtube for the clip on atomic clocks but could't find it, if I come across it on my Tivo later I'll upload it to the tube and post back

 

[PaulR]

I don't have any evidence to hand, or can post a link to, but I thought UTC was controlled from Boulder, Colorado?

 

[timo_w2s]

Surely if we didn't add the leap seconds we'd be out of sync with sunset/sunrise eventually and without the extra day in February we'd be out of sync with the seasons?

 

[sonnetpete]

I don't think that we (as humans) could ever be out of sync with the seasons. It's only the equipment we use as a reference that would be out of sync. When we first moved here we didn't wear watches or have TV for the first four months. We got up when it was light, ate when we were hungry and went to bed after it got dark. It's civilisation that defines time and makes you adhere to it, I don't see wild animals wearing watches...

 

[Lazarus]

Absolutely agree - I only ever wear a watch for Travelling and for attending Weddings and Funerals.

The days are primarily led by observation and instinct.

 

[smoggy07]

It appears after reading this -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Atomic_Time <- the clip I watched on the Discovery channel was a little misleading

 

[timo_w2s]

I don't think that we (as humans) could ever be out of sync with the seasons.

Well yes, obviously we would still enjoy the warmth in the summer and plants would still grow when it's warm, but it would be confusing if summer gradually changed in our calendar. That's all I meant about being out of sync.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Well yes, obviously we would still enjoy the warmth in the summer and plants would still grow when it's warm, but it would be confusing if summer gradually changed in our calendar. That's all I meant about being out of sync.

I bought a punnet of blackberries last week......

 

[Lazarus]

Cripes, you must be wealthy

 

[sonnetpete]

Think yourself lucky he wasn't using the spellchecker on one of them to post.....otherwise he might have bought a pinot grigio

 

[Channel Hopper]

View attachment 63789

Cripes, you must be wealthy

They were discounted.

 

[geordiejohn]

I remember as a kid there was a three-year long British Standard Time experiment (1968-71), we stayed on BST all through the winter, it was pretty grim walking to school in the dark, there was a big campaign to make kids wear reflective material so they didn't get run over. The lighter evenings were nice but I seem to remember there were a lot more kids killed.

 

[sonnetpete]

I remember as a kid there was a three-year long British Standard Time experiment (1968-71), we stayed on BST all through the winter, it was pretty grim walking to school in the dark, there was a big campaign to make kids wear reflective material so they didn't get run over. The lighter evenings were nice but I seem to remember there were a lot more kids killed.

I remember that, though I left school in 1967. Obviously people living further north (as I was then) complained the most but I think Scottish school kids would be going to and from school in the dark whether it was BST or GMT. Nowadays don't most kids get lifts to school thus making the BST argument a bit redundant?

 

[geordiejohn]

I keep reading about kids getting lifts to school, they should walk if it is a reasonable distance, all our kids did and not a fatty among them!

 

[Captain Jack]

There are lots of pros and cons for time change. My relatives in Russia moan about the dark mornings in the winter after abolishing the time change but say it's nice to have extra light in the evenings. When I lived there, I remember winters got dark just after 3pm ... but I liked it.. as a kid.

Now it's a nuisance having to adjust myself twice a year to regular programming times on Russian TV... 9 o'clock news are at 6pm in the summer and 5pm in the winter!

 

[Piltdownpaul]

I remember as a kid there was a three-year long British Standard Time experiment (1968-71), we stayed on BST all through the winter, it was pretty grim walking to school in the dark, there was a big campaign to make kids wear reflective material so they didn't get run over. The lighter evenings were nice but I seem to remember there were a lot more kids killed.

This could solve the lack of housing crisis long term........just a thought.......

 

[2cvbloke]

This could solve the lack of housing crisis long term........just a thought.......

Given the way the child benefit breeders work, I doubt it...