Poul-Henning Kamp wrote on 2005-12-16 22:44 UTC: > Now that EU got extended way east I think everybody expected the > silly notion of "one timezone for all of EU" to die a rapid death > but that might just wishfull thinking.
Mankind could go even further, abandon the entire notion of time zones being separated by 15� meridians and move on to generous continental time zones. This brings us even back closer to the topic of this list: Why is it important that our clocks give a +/- 30 minutes approximation of local astronomical time? Sure, there seem clear advantages in having midnight happen when most people are asleep, or at least outside extended business hours. So having everyone on UT is not very attractive for those living more than +/-3 hours from the prime meridian. But since most of us sleep at least 6 hours and are not (supposed to be ;-) working for at least 15 hours each day, such a simple requirement could still be achieved with just 3-5 timezones worldwide. The crudest approach would probably be a) N+S America: use local time of Cuba (~ UT - 5.5 h) b) Europe/Africa/Middle east: use local time of Poland/Greece (~ UT + 1.5 h) c) Asia + Australia: use local time of Thailand (~ UT + 6.5 h) Sure, the hours of darkness would vary substantially within each of these zones. But they do already *today* for much of the world, thanks to summer/winder. China understood this a long time ago. Markus -- Markus Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ || CB3 0FD, Great Britain
