Dear Tony,

Your ‘natural geometry of daylight’ is an interesting concept, and more useful 
than the frequent rants by those who I am going to call the ‘blanket 
botherers’. (As inspired the oft quoted:  Only a white man could possibly 
believe that by cutting a foot off one end of a blanket and stitching it on to 
the other end you get a longer blanket.)

The botherers always fail to answer the childishly simple question as to why we 
adopted DST in the first place, and then adopted double summer time in both 
world wars.

To answers some of Frank’s other points, you are quite right to point out that 
many of us on the list are of a very “lucky" few who have an interest in the 
precise location of the sun. I suggest that the vast majority of our population 
have only very vague ideas as to where the sun is in hourly terms, and many 
could hardly point due north or south to better than 45º. Similarly the concept 
of noon when the sun is at its zenith is an abstraction, and nothing at all to 
do with daily life.

You are also right that we have externally imposed constraints – if fact we 
live in highly synchronised society, and much better for all make the change 
together and by decree.

Permanent DST is a good idea, and then to go one better and add the extra hour 
as before, to what the pundits call Single Double Summer Time (SDST). This 
gives many benefits to society as whole, not least in potentially saving the 
odd power station or wind farm, and reduction in fatal road accidents. There is 
also a strong societal trend to an ‘evening economy’ which would benefit by 
longer lighter evenings. For the general population (and a fundamental point 
about DST) the day is not symmetrical!

I was annoyed about this a number of years ago, and then followed it up, by 
coincidence, with an essay in reply to a letter in the journal of the British 
Horological Institute. The attached note, with some updates, contains essential 
references. However I should stress that these arguments apply mainly to the 
UK. When read and digested it is hard to argue the case for not accepting a 
change to SDST, but the politicians lacked the courage. The accident statistics 
are particularly revealing with the implication that by not adopting SDST we 
are consigning 600 people a year to premature deaths.

I am assuming that the pdf comes through the filter, and if not, I will copy 
the text into another email.

I know that I will have difficulty in keeping the blanket botherers quiet, but 
I can try!

Best wishes, Doug

Attachment: Daylight saving essay, BHI, update.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document



> On 22 Nov 2016, at 10:53, Tony Finch <d...@dotat.at> wrote:
> 
> Frank King <f...@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>> 
>> You can get out of bed whenever you wish on any day of the year
>> so it is...
> 
> Well, lucky people can, but many people have externally imposed
> constraints on their timetables - school times, shop opening times,
> working shift times, delivery restriction times - and these are based
> more on what the clock says than what the sun says.
> 
> Personally, I favour an approach that's based more on the natural geometry
> of daylight and less on politics. 
> http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/25.10.html#subj1
> 
> Tony.
> -- 
> f.anthony.n.finch  <d...@dotat.at>  http://dotat.at/  -  I xn--zr8h punycode
> Southeast Iceland: Northerly 4 or 5, becoming variable 3 or 4. Rough becoming
> moderate. Wintry showers. Good, occasionally moderate.
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> https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
> 

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