Saturday 26 October 2024

Don't Forget, Time Travel Tonight!

Indeed, at 02.00 tomorrow morning the time in Britain reverts to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT - website), that is, the clocks go back an hour. This may be great for people who stay in bed until late in the day, but for me it just means I will be awake earlier, sort of, because my body clock doesn't recognise changing time, and I am an early riser. Why is there 'Summer Time' then? In many parts of the world altering clocks has been used to get the most out of hours of daylight, but why not just keep GMT in Britain, if we adopt time travel for light purposes only, surely in the summer more hours of useful daylight is unnecessary? It doesn't make sense in the modern world. However, it's not just in Britain that clocks go back and forth, no, in much of the Western World it changes too, despite many countries not following this process, including Japan, India, China, countries near the Equator for obvious reasons, similarly at, or near, the Poles, eg parts of Canada and Greenland, and Argentina.
So why is the 'Prime Meridian' line at Greenwich, and has been since 1884? This boils down to "that in the late 19th century, 72% of the world's commerce depended on sea-charts which used Greenwich as the Prime Meridian... (and it) ...would be of advantage to the largest number of people" (website). So there you have it, I trust that 'night owls' will enjoy the extra rest. However, let's just stick to GMT I suggest, I'm not so fond of this type of time travelling! 😉

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