what are leap years anyway

[Tommahawk]

Leap years are needed so that the calendar is in alignment with the earth's motion around the sun.

 

why not just recalibrate with daylight savings?

[Callipygous]

how would you go about doing that? keep "springing ahead" and just never "fall back"? so we end up rotating the hours through the daylight till dawn is at 12 and then it starts correcting? O.o

[YT2095]

a year is roughly 365.25 days, that`s quarter of a day a year extra, changing all the clocks from 60 seconds to maybe 61 or whatever the division would be to compensate would be a mamoth task, it`s much easier to accrue these 1/4 days and add a day in every 4 years

 

I do think that with the daylight savings that we should split the difference and have half an our each way though, what`s in half an hour anyway?

[klanger]

Why do we still have daylight savings? I thought it was introduced during the WWll as something to do with the blackouts and farmers?? Also I have noticed that we dont all change our clocks at the same time, I know Spain is in line with us here in the UK but that America are usually about a week later, again I have no idea why its like that.

 

Anyone have more info on this?

[Douglas]

Why do we still have daylight savings? I thought it was introduced during the WWll as something to do with the blackouts and farmers?? Also I have noticed that we dont all change our clocks at the same time' date=' I know Spain is in line with us here in the UK but that America are usually about a week later, again I have no idea why its like that.

 

Anyone have more info on this?[/quote']Daylight saving time in the U.S., starts the 1st Sunday in April and ends the last Sunday in Oct.

 

The reasons are...

1) Energy savings in summer

2) Child safety in winter

 

It's up to each country as to whether they want to use DST or not, and here in the States, it's up to each state.

 

In countries near the equator, there's no reason to go on DST. Some countries arbitrarily put themselves in another time zone to extend the evening hours......But regardless of what the hour is, the minutes and seconds are exactly the same.

[swansont]

It's up to each country as to whether they want to use DST or not' date=' and here in the States, it's up to each state.

[/quote']

 

Actually I think it's at an even lower level in the US. IIRC Part of Indiana uses DST, but not all of it. And you have to specifically opt out of it.

 

Plus, there was something recently in the news about tacking on a month at either end, so DST will be seven months long.

[Douglas]

Actually I think it's at an even lower level in the US. IIRC Part of Indiana uses DST' date=' but not all of it. And you have to specifically opt out of it.

 

Plus, there was something recently in the news about tacking on a month at either end, so DST will be seven months long.[/quote']Yes, I think Arizona opted out of it too.

 

I hope they *do* tack on a month at either end.

 

Oddly, DST is not balanced in terms of been equal around the summer solstice. We have 7 months of DST, but only 2 and 2/3 rds months before the solstice.

[ecoli]

a year is roughly 365.25 days' date=' that`s quarter of a day a year extra, changing all the clocks from 60 seconds to maybe 61 or whatever the division would be to compensate would be a mamoth task, it`s much easier to accrue these 1/4 days and add a day in every 4 years

 

I do think that with the daylight savings that we should split the difference and have half an our each way though, what`s in half an hour anyway? [/quote']

 

More accurately, a year is 365.242199 days.

[swansont]

Yes' date=' I think Arizona opted out of it too.

 

I hope they *do* tack on a month at either end.

 

Oddly, DST is not balanced in terms of been equal around the summer solstice. We have 7 months of DST, but only 2 and 2/3 rds months before the solstice.[/quote']

 

That's probably because summer is the three months after the solstice. DST is a little more symmetric about summer and more so about school summer vacation.

[Douglas]

That's probably because summer is the three months after the solstice. DST is a little more symmetric about summer and more so about school summer vacation.

Yeah, yer right. But it seems like it diminishes the "energy saving" argument a bit.

[swansont]

Yeah, yer right. But it seems like it diminishes the "energy saving" argument a bit.

 

Why? Summer is when people sleep in, stay up later and take vacations. Also, presumably if you do this symmetric to the hottest part of the year, you save on cooling costs if people don't turn on the AC so much when they're outdoors in the daytime.

[Douglas]

Why? Summer is when people sleep in, stay up later and take vacations. Also, presumably if you do this symmetric to the hottest part of the year, you save on cooling costs if people don't turn on the AC so much when they're outdoors in the daytime.

I suppose the gov't did some analysis to determine the optimum months for DST.

In my case, there would be no savings with the AC, only a savings with lights, in which case, I'd save more money if DST were symmetric around the summer solstice.

[nomadd22]

Daylight savings time confuses my chickens.

[YT2095]

More accurately' date=' a year is [/size']365.242199 days.

 

agreed but 365.25 isn`t so Anal