13 O'Clock
Daylight savings will come to an end on October 30 this year. That Sunday, at 2 AM, it will magically become 1 AM for the second time that day. Then time will march on as before, with noon now corresponding to the time when the sun is at its highest for the first time since April. And once again, I will wonder, “Why can’t this happen every Sunday?”
I actually wish it could happen every day, or perhaps every other day, seeing as how the day is a little less than 25 hours long on one of the many planets I suspect I am really from. However, I recognize that this may be too difficult. So I propose a compromise. Shove an extra hour into Sunday. Call it 13 o’clock. People eat lunch late on Sundays anyway, right? So now they can eat lunch late and not be too full to eat dinner on time. Plus, extra hour on the weekend! Maybe we can make it the national Hour of Rest. Since everything is open 24 hours, this will give everyone an excuse to take a break from our 24-7 lives. We’ll have an extra hour to catch up on our sleep. And in February and August, we’ll get to watch the sunrise when we go out for lunch. Of course, the rotation doesn’t quite work out to taking six months, so two weeks in April and two weeks in October we won’t add the extra hour.
“But a day is a day!” you must be saying. “You can’t change that!” Yes, but why is a day a day? Because the Earth rotates on its axis once every 24 hours. But what happens when we venture out to other worlds? We can’t rely on the new world’s rotational period to dictate the length of the day. For one thing, syncing up with Earth would be a pain. For another thing, 16 days is a long time to go without sleep. Anyway, the Sun won’t be quite as good at setting our biological clocks for us when we’re way out in the black. So we’ll have to rely on our own circadian rhythms to dictate the length of our day. But wait! Without outside cues, the human internal clock is more than 24 hours but less than 25 hours. Let’s face it. There really aren’t enough hours in the day.
These days, more people set their internal clocks by the television than by the sun, so why wait until we have colonies on the Moon and Mars and are fighting an intergalactic war with giant flying brains to change what we call a week? Let’s slip that extra hour in now… while we still have time.
I actually wish it could happen every day, or perhaps every other day, seeing as how the day is a little less than 25 hours long on one of the many planets I suspect I am really from. However, I recognize that this may be too difficult. So I propose a compromise. Shove an extra hour into Sunday. Call it 13 o’clock. People eat lunch late on Sundays anyway, right? So now they can eat lunch late and not be too full to eat dinner on time. Plus, extra hour on the weekend! Maybe we can make it the national Hour of Rest. Since everything is open 24 hours, this will give everyone an excuse to take a break from our 24-7 lives. We’ll have an extra hour to catch up on our sleep. And in February and August, we’ll get to watch the sunrise when we go out for lunch. Of course, the rotation doesn’t quite work out to taking six months, so two weeks in April and two weeks in October we won’t add the extra hour.
“But a day is a day!” you must be saying. “You can’t change that!” Yes, but why is a day a day? Because the Earth rotates on its axis once every 24 hours. But what happens when we venture out to other worlds? We can’t rely on the new world’s rotational period to dictate the length of the day. For one thing, syncing up with Earth would be a pain. For another thing, 16 days is a long time to go without sleep. Anyway, the Sun won’t be quite as good at setting our biological clocks for us when we’re way out in the black. So we’ll have to rely on our own circadian rhythms to dictate the length of our day. But wait! Without outside cues, the human internal clock is more than 24 hours but less than 25 hours. Let’s face it. There really aren’t enough hours in the day.
These days, more people set their internal clocks by the television than by the sun, so why wait until we have colonies on the Moon and Mars and are fighting an intergalactic war with giant flying brains to change what we call a week? Let’s slip that extra hour in now… while we still have time.
posted by SpakKadi at 10:43 PM
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