5 ms·
Suppose that, since next March 20th, the government adopts a standard time and school schedule that are perfectly synchronized with the local astronomical time,
by teo_zero 2y ago
Suppose that, since next March 20th, the government adopts a standard time and school schedule that are perfectly synchronized with the local astronomical time, i.e. kids wake up at dawn, go to bed when it's dark, etc. On March 21st the sun will rise a little earlier and set a little later, so the once-perfect synchronization will be a bit off, and more the following day, an so on until the summer solstice. Then the trend will be inverted and the skew between the two times will slowly decrease until reaching zero on September 22nd. But the very next day the synchronization will go off again, this time in the opposite sense, until March 2026,
and so on forever.
Just like a broken clock that shows the right time twice per day, the ideal ruling suggested in the article will result in two perfect days every year.
At least the current scheme theoretically allows for 4 perfecy days per year! Note that I'm not saying that it is what really happens, though. It depends on school schedule and the dates of the switch. About the latter, I do think that the switch should happen as close as possible to the equinox, so towards the end of March, like in Europe.