3 ms·

Sure, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't optimize the time zones so that the deviation is minimized.

• adhesive_wombat 4y ago
  Sure, if "minimise the deviation from the local solar maximum when the clock hands are vertical" is the best thing to optimise for. In practise, whether the sun is 15 degrees to the left or right at exactly noon doesn't have much practical effect on people in the way that it getting dark before they even can see the sky in the evenings does.
  • inciampati 4y ago
    Tbh this sounds like a problem to bring up with employers and not whole societies. Anyway people should do this daylight saving forever experiment and contemplate these issues in the dead of winter. We can come back to this in a few decades. All those standard start times are based on a world centered on solar noon. Maybe the semi ancients were onto something.
    • adhesive_wombat 4y ago
      Many "semi-ancients" had variable length hours from ancient Egypt right though to about the 14th century. Even after the introduction of mechanical clocks with uniform hours, some systems counted from sunset, not noon. Eventually the noon reference became fixed upon, but it's only noon because it was easier to measure the shadow in that way. Other than a vague but unfounded sense of aesthetic need and the obsolete practically of synchronization with a sundial, solar noon isn't special.