I was going to post about this anyway, and then I heard this afternoon that the UK government is thinking about time zones and what to do with the clocks in the UK.
The UK’s government’s idea so far seems to be to have what is currently summer time in winter, and put the clocks forward yet another hour in summer, so achieving “double summer time”. They say this will give us longer evenings and bring us into line with Europe, both of which things will, apparently, help our tourist trade.
But my idea, which I’ve been thinking about for ages and ages (since Thursday, in fact), and is therefore really well thought through, is to have just one time zone everywhere in the world. We could then also do away with the international date line.
The way I see it working is simple: people would just get used to the fact that 6am would be morning in one part of the world, but evening in another. There would be none of this daft translation of time from one place to another, and we’d know that if something were said to have happened at, say, 9:30 pm, anywhere in the world, it would have been 9:30 pm wherever we were too.
We could all celebrate major events together - like New Year, for instance.
It’s such a simple idea. I mean, we don’t change the months round just because we’re in a different hemisphere, do we? We just get used to the fact that December is winter in the UK and summer in Oz.
So … what do y’all think? You think I’m being stupid, don’t you …?
Your idea has merit. So much so, that for people who live and work in multiple time zones, they’ve already been using your idea. They go by Greenwich Mean Time. Mostly, these people would be international spies and jewel thieves in the movies. The rest of us sedentary, law abiding citizens have too much to worry about what with our jobs and families and trying to keep the house and yard work up to date that we’re really not looking for a new ways to cause social upheavel.
You’ll be hard pressed to get any of us hard working citizens to try to make things simpler for tourists or international criminals. And if there is more evening time, that probably means more opportunity for the local criminals too.
You attempt to have us become a global community is worth some thought.
You could probably do that with Greenwich Mean Time, and abolishing Daylight savings time, which is not the same from country to country (or even state in the US). A strange wasting of regulation time money etc. While their at it switch a ten hour clock and make time metric.
I never got my head around the reasons why schools in the UK operate from 9.00 to 3:30. On the Continent the times tend to be different.
Why do offices operate nine-to-five? I think once-upon-a-time they kept in line with the Stock Exchange.
Yes, it helps to have most things open at much the same times, but there’s scope for a lot more leeway.
I like the international date line and being able to call friends in Brisbane to find out what the following day is going to be like and get stock-market tips.
Actually, there are quite a few areas of activity where the use of UTC is fairly, er, universal, and the scenario you describe is more or less the case.
For example, I’ve been a ham radio operator since I was 14, and a shortwave listener even longer. And given the global, simultaneous nature of the hobby, nearly all timekeeping is done in UTC. Most HF-band hams keep a UTC 24-hour clock displayed, and you get quite used to thinking in dual times.
OTOH, my experience is that too many people have a weak enough grasp on 24-hour time, much less time zone shifting, to make this practical for everyday use. We’ve had friends call us from New York at 4 AM here to wish us good morning. Grrr.
Heavens, why not have everyone just move to the Shetlands. For lower latituters like me (33 north), northern Europe in the summer is weird enough as it is, with daylight until 10+ PM.
But I think bringing Britain and Ireland (you know, the Celtic Isles) into CET is not a bad idea. It does put you pretty far west of the solar meridian (~15 to 25 degrees). But most of France and Spain are that far off, and they seem to manage. Who the heck looks at the sky anymore? Everyone walks around heads-down anyway, texting on their mobiles.
As for Daylight Saving time, I think it’s one of the dumbest ideas ever inflicted on mankind. Curse you Benjamin Franklin! But that’s different topic …
I’m glad that’s the case. Now, is there any way that we can get some really popular activity, like, ooh, I dunno, posting on forums, perhaps, to depend on everyone having the same time around the world, and then, by degrees, I could have my wish?
I already live in a universal time zone: GST = Guru Standard Time. Scientists have yet to pin it down, but I suspect that it corresponds to the rotational behavior of some yet-to-be-discovered extrasolar planet. It sure doesn’t correspond to that light-and-dark thingy that seems to happen on the other side of the household fixture that some people call a “window”. Anyone who has seen me posting here at 3 AM can confirm this.
GST has some drawbacks. For example, whenever you arrive at a place, it turns out that you were supposed to be there 20 minutes earlier. And 60 years go by in the blink of an eye. How did that happen?
Ben, I think it is a great idea. I always get terribly upset when THEY change the clocks, not just once a year, but twice! Takes me weeks to settle in afterwards…
To abolish Time Zones altogether and let the internet, robots and all machines connected to it only use Universal or Machine Time is only fair. It will open local opportunities to adapt to local or Human Time, and on that level I’d like to promote to reintroduce counting the day hours from sunrise onwards till sunset, then counting night hours from sunset to sunrise. These should ideally be Desert Island Flex Hours. But even if we let the Machines calculate them for us Locals we will be much happier!
Thinking of Desert Islands: I might as well convert to Tidal Time
(an utterly reasonable, sensible, sensitive and non-religious conversion) .
Then there is the traditional Thailand 6 hour clock. (Which is still 24 hours, but instead of AM and PM the break the day into quarters with 6 hours in each.)
And do we really need to have AM and PM? 24 hours in a day? How about numbering them 1-24.
It still seems strange using fractional time with its minutes and ‘second minutes’ in a decimal world.
Instead of trying to change everyone else, why don’t we just choose to live in a world of our own choosing and take our lead from Douglas Adams of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? The concept of Babelfish could be incorporated into every clock and timing device, so that no matter what time the device is in, a component to my watch (yes, I’m old fashioned and don’t have a cell phone) will instantly receive signals and tell me what the time is in mutetime, the most superior acting time of all.
But, it ISN’T decimal. It’s only decimal to those people who have strange accents, and to such as who pay any attention to them. If people with strange accents want to be all decimal and modernised and yet still keep the Babylonian clock, that’s their business. Maybe they forgot that the clocks are there; maybe it’s nostalgia for something a little warmer and retro amid the cold barren clinicality of decimalisation; whatever the lapse is, I’m not going to make any comment other than to cross my arms, raise an eyebrow, nod my head, and knowingly say, “Uh-HUH.”
I say: let’s switch to radians. Much more elegant and mathematically sound. C’mon, didn’t you always want to check your watch and say, “Oh look, it’s pi o’clock! Lunchtime! Let’s have pie!”
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