John H. Robinson, IV wrote:
John Oliver wrote:
On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 11:42:23AM -0800, John H. Robinson, IV wrote:
Then again, I hate the whole idea of timezones to begin with.
Until someone figures out how to stretch the Earth out like a Mercator
projection, we're stuck with 'em :-)
Uh.
No.
We just need a willingness to say that time is a human construct (oddly
enough, it is) and that the number 12 (or noon) is just as arbitrary as
any other number (do a small experiment: go outside on a sunny day with
a ruler, and see when your shadow is the shortest. If it aligns
precisely with 12:00 noon, consider yourself very lucky, otherwse
conclude that 12 is arbitrary. Go east or west the following day, and
try the experiment again! It'll be fun!)
All we need to do is get rid of them all, and use one time world wide.
Those that participate in cross continental meetings will lose the
confusion of ``was that 11 o'clock east coast time, or west coast
time?'' and be left with one absolute time.
Travellers would also love it: the would know exactly how long their
flight would last, no matter how many timezones they cross, without
having to do math.
It could be done in 6 to twelve years. Move each timezone closer to UTC
once or twice a year.
Local time (the only other true time) can be reduced to four specific
times: sunrise, noon. sunset, and midnight. So local times could
reference the (option a) closest or (option b) immediately past one of
the four fixed points.
Such as, my kids bedtime would be two hours after sunset, which could
be spoken as two after set, or simply two set.
Speak of o'clock, and it is absolute. Speak of rise/noon/set/mid and it
is relative to a fixed local time. I believe it would work out rather
well.
Except my mother will always be calling me too early in the morning
because she can't ever remember whether my rise comes two hours before
or after her rise.
Your system has as many drawbacks as advantages.
I think people should just be encouraged (and nudged) to learn UT (or
GMT) in addition to their local time. Travelers, travel agencies, and
carriers could easily us UT right now. Meetings with participants from
multiple time zones could use UT as well.
As an aside, although China (like USA) spans multiple time zones, the
entire country has only one time.
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