What Time Is It?

[Jethro Bodine]

OK. I had to go look that one up.... It's 3 AM, eh?

Yep. Set your alarm.

 

[Willie T]

Long story. First of all, we tell time by timezones, so in effect we are using some privileged meridian to tell our time, in which DST is doing the same thing. We are merely calling someone else's solar noon (who live 15 degrees from us the next meridian over) our solar noon. And the same goes with time zones. In other words, what I am saying is that at some locations, the sun never agrees with the clocks.

However, if you are lucky enough to live on or close to a meridian the time zone is based on, such as the one I am living near at 75 degrees, then the sun agrees with the clocks 4 times a year on the meridian:

Mid April, mid June, early September and around Christmas. Before the railroads and time zones, everyone had their local clock time (and meridian) so these 4 times a year were consistent all over.

But now as we move further away from the time-zone meridian, this offsets linearly to be different times of the year at different locations which I won't explain here as it's too detailed.

That's interesting. Really! We had a huge, 4-foot sundial out in front of our high school, and I was always fascinated by the way my watch would sometimes come close to matching it, and other times be so far off.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Instead of turning my clock back one hour, can't I just spin it in a drum at the speed of light for one hour?

 

[Jethro Bodine]

That's interesting. Really! We had a huge, 4-foot sundial out in front of our high school, and I was always fascinated by the way my watch would sometimes come close to matching it, and other times be so far off.

Reba is so old Stonehedge was out in front of her High School and was still accurate.

(Couldn't think of anyone else to pick on )

 

[Willie T]

Can a clock be built that will read a little more... or less... than 24 hours, and thereby keep fairly accurate time (in relation to the seasons) all year round?

It seems GPS relativity could somehow be utilized..... to account for the location of each individual clock... and the incidence of moving while traveling East or West.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Can a clock be built that will read a little more... or less... than 24 hours, and thereby keep fairly accurate time all year round?

Lol, that's too easy of an answer to the problem of accurate time keeping. We need to just keep adding days here, moving clocks there, to keep things in line.

 

[tim-from-pa]

Can a clock be built that will read a little more... or less... than 24 hours, and thereby keep fairly accurate time (in relation to the seasons) all year round?

It seems GPS relativity could somehow be utilized..... to account for the location of each individual clock... and the incidence of moving while traveling East or West.

Well Willie, it's not that clocks are wrong, but neither is the sun. It's a point of reference. The sun "moves" around us an average of once every 24 hours. It's speed varies so that some days are shorter, and some longer than 24 hours due to the tilt of the earth and the speed variations in our orbit. So the clock is just an instrument that records the average solar position, the same position as if the earth had no tilt (sun always over the equator) and a perfectly circular orbit.

There's really no need to change, even if subtly, the length of an hour and make it non-uniform. The solution is to realize that other motions come into play to "change" the hours, so that by adding or subtracting that correction on the chart, plus your longitudinal shift from your time zone meridian, and also DST (when applicable) to the sundial time will give the clock time very accurately, provided the sundial is set up correctly.

There are some sundials that have a movable gnomon that can also compensate for this, because let's say that your dial is slow that day by 12 minutes, it bothers some people to add 12 minutes to get the clock time. So the movable gnomon compensates for this.

Keep in mind that the sun is the actual position over a meridian, so it's never wrong, but the downside is it's not uniform. The clocks are the average position where we want the sun to be, so they don't record actual position of the sun, but the advantage is that it's uniform. So as you can see, it's just a matter of what meridian standard you want to use.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

I think Willie asked a brilliant question. Why are we adding a day to our calendars every four years when all we have to do is program into our electronic time pieces that additional correction so that it is never noticeable? History is full of these creative ways we've made abrupt time adjustments in order to compensate for the inconsistency of the movements of celestial objects. Modern programming can eliminate that altogether.

 

[TOG]

I think Willie asked a brilliant question. Why are we adding a day to our calendars every four years when all we have to do is program into our electronic time pieces that additional correction so that it is never noticeable? History is full of these creative ways we've made abrupt time adjustments in order to compensate for the inconsistency of the movements of celestial objects. Modern programming can eliminate that altogether.

We have leap years because the solar year is actually about 6 hours longer than 365 days. How do you propose we compensate for that without it being noticeable that "midnight" is coming 6 hours later every year. After 2 years, "midnight" would be at noon, if clocks were made to adjust for it gradually, rather than by regularly adding a day.

The TOG​

 

[Jethro Bodine]

We have leap years because the solar year is actually about 6 hours longer than 365 days. How do you propose we compensate for that without it being noticeable that "midnight" is coming 6 hours later every year. After 2 years, "midnight" would be at noon, if clocks were made to adjust for it gradually, rather than by regularly adding a day.

The TOG​

I don't know. I didn't say I was brilliant. I'll have to think about it. But it looks like all you have to do is add slightly less than .99 seconds to each day, say at 11:59 each night, just stretch that minute out by .99 seconds electronically in every time piece made, and you'd never have to have another leap day. As for Ground Hog Day? That's safe. And isn't that all that matters anyway?

 

[Jethro Bodine]

And while we contemplate the complexities of time....

 

[TOG]

I don't know. I didn't say I was brilliant. I'll have to think about it. But it looks like all you have to do is add slightly less than .99 seconds to each day, say at 11:59 each night, just stretch that minute out by .99 seconds electronically in every time piece made, and you'd never have to have another leap day. As for Ground Hog Day? That's safe. And isn't that all that matters anyway?

I think you might want to take another look at those calculations. An adjustment of 0.99 seconds per day adds up to 361.35 seconds in 365 days. That translates to 6 minutes and 1.35 seconds. You're off by a factor of approx. 60. You actually have to adjust the clocks by about 59 seconds a day to do what you propose. That would get noticeable fast. In just two months, you would have changed the clocks by an hour.

The TOG​

 

[Jethro Bodine]

You actually have to adjust the clocks by about 59 seconds a day to do what you propose. That would get noticeable fast. In just two months, you would have changed the clocks by an hour.

The TOG​

Like I say, I'm not exactly brilliant, but wouldn't that extra 59 seconds a day slipped in at midnight when we're all snug in our beds and unawares keep the days in sync with the sun, the very thing we're trying to achieve? I'm thinking we wouldn't notice anything except that our clocks and the sun now stay lined up. Again, haven't thought it through much...

 

[Jethro Bodine]

I feel better. Someone liked my Reba/ Stonehedge joke. (Thanks jasonc). I was beginning to think it was so bad that Reba didn't even bother coming after me with her , or her .

 

[TOG]

Instead of turning my clock back one hour, can't I just spin it in a drum at the speed of light for one hour?

If you do that, then one hour will pass for you, but for the rest of the world, it will be a million years, and they will have abandoned DST by then, like all civilized nations did long ago. (Guess which country doesn't use DST.)

The TOG​

 

[TOG]

Like I say, I'm not exactly brilliant, but wouldn't that extra 59 seconds a day slipped in at midnight when we're all snug in our beds and unawares keep the days in sync with the sun, the very thing we're trying to achieve? I'm thinking we wouldn't notice anything except that our clocks and the sun now stay lined up. Again, haven't thought it through much...

Leap years aren't to keep clocks in sync with the sun, but to keep the calendar in sync with the seasons. They add a leap second every now and then to keep the clocks in sync, but nobody notices it (unless it's on the news), since the accuracy of the clocks most people use is so low that it doesn't matter anyway.

The TOG​

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Leap years aren't to keep clocks in sync with the sun, but to keep the calendar in sync with the seasons. They add a leap second every now and then to keep the clocks in sync, but nobody notices it (unless it's on the news), since the accuracy of the clocks most people use is so low that it doesn't matter anyway.

The TOG​

Aren't the seasons directly related to the sun, and so in that way we are keeping our clocks and calendars in sync with the sun?

(Oh, oh! Two likes on the Reba/ Stonehedge joke! That's not a pity 'like', TOG, I hope. )

 

[jasonc]

cant we just use the mayan calendar?

 

[Jethro Bodine]

cant we just use the mayan calendar?

Well, since it ended we can only re-use it if it's like our calendars where you can reuse an old calendar every 7 years. (Watch, I bet you five bucks TOG is going to check the math on that one :yes).

 

[TOG]

Aren't the seasons directly related to the sun, and so in that way we are keeping our clocks and calendars in sync with the sun?

The clocks are pretty much in sync as it is. The leap years only affect the calendar, not the clocks.

(Oh, oh! Two likes on the Reba/ Stonehedge joke! That's not a pity 'like', TOG, I hope. )

No, you won't get any pity from me. I just hadn't noticed it until you mentioned that Jason had liked it.

The TOG​