It’s funny how some very basic concepts are somehow misunderstood by most people. One of those is how daytime and nighttime occur and the relationship between that phenomenon and the devices that keep track of it. Because this is, apparently, a difficult concept for people to understand, I’m going to explain it in the driest, plainest language I can.

Day and Night happen because the Earth rotates on its axis, so that, at any given time, half of the Earth faces the Sun and the other half faces away from the Sun. The half that faces the Sun experiences daytime, while the half facing away from the Sun experiences nighttime. As the Earth rotates, the Sun appears to rise in the morning and set in the evening.

Additionally, the Earth travels around the Sun, more or less in a circle, while it also rotates on its axis. This revolution is called Earth’s “orbit”. One year is the amount of time it takes for the Earth to travel around the Sun one time. Because Earth’s axis is slightly tilted, parts of Earth are pointed more towards or away from the Sun at different times in its travel around the Sun. This tilt is what causes seasons. Parts of the Earth that are tilted toward the Sun experience summer and parts of the Earth that are tilted away from the Sun experience winter. The parts of the Earth that are tilted toward the Sun in the summer experience longer daytime and the parts of the Earth that are tilted away from the Sun in the winter experience shorter daytime.

That’s how day and night work. Check out this animation.

This process of the Earth’s rotation on its axis and revolution around the Sun are completely unaffected by clocks and wristwatches. In fact, the purpose of clocks and wristwatches is simply to provide reference points as this process takes place. Clocks and wristwatches don’t control the rotation or revolution of the Earth, they only observe it. Just like you only observe a football game, you don’t control it. When the quarterback throws the ball, the ball doesn’t care that you want it to go here or there. You can only watch as it does what it’s going to do. The same is true for the Earth and the Sun, clocks and wristwatches can only keep track of what they do. The Earth and Sun don’t care what anyone wants, we can only watch as they do what they’re going to do.

The point of explaining this is that, in many places in the world, people widely believe that clocks and wristwatches actually control the movement of the Earth and the Sun. They will argue that changing what their clocks and watches say that the time is will change the amount of light the Earth gets from the Sun in the morning or evening. This is a myth. It is absolutely false and I can demonstrate why in a simple experiment. Go outside on a sunny day, so that you can see the Sun. Set your watch to a different time. It doesn’t matter what time, just change it. Did the Sun change its position in the sky in accordance with the change you made? It did not. You can try this experiment over and over, but the Sun will remain on its trajectory, regardless of the changes you make to your watch. You could have a friend conduct this experiment with you if you think changing two watches will have a greater effect. They won’t. In fact, if everyone on Earth changes every clock and every wristwatch that exists, at the same time, it will have no effect on the Earth’s movement or its relationship to the the Sun.

Now that this concept is understood, there’s no need to change what our clocks say twice a year. It will have no effect on the Earth’s movement in any way. Clocks and watches do not control Earth’s movement. There will not be more or less light from the Sun in the morning or evening due to any changes made to clocks or watches.

Some people recognize that changing what our clocks say is silly, but they still do it. They believe that certain people, namely, the political class, need to tell us to stop. This is also false. It isn’t widely known, but I’ve proven that you can, of your own will, simply not change the time on your clocks and watches and continue life as normal. Everyone can do that if they understand the concepts above.

There’s a cultural component to the measurement of time related to the widespread changing of clocks: which time should we continue using and which should we discard? My preference would be to discard Standard time (the time most people change to in the winter) and only use Daylight Savings Time (DST) (the time most people change to in the summer). The reason is, from a cultural perspective, it seems more reasonable to use a time measurement that does not result in the Sun setting in what we generally recognize as the afternoon, rather than setting in the the evening or night. DST aligns with that idea. Where I live, there are times during the year, under Standard Time, when the Sun sets around 17:30 in the afternoon, and that confuses the daytime with the nighttime. Under DST, the Sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, as we would generally expect it to.

I’d be fine with losing the debate over DST or Standard Time and accept Standard Time as long as we can avoid the confusion and inconvenience of changing it twice a year, since that has no affect on the Earth or the Sun. Regardless, this is a concept that needs to be understood so that this nonsensical practice can be eliminated.

Optional Rant

I live in a rural, agricultural area of the US. People argue that changing the time helps farmers by giving them more daylight in the morning. Obviously, as pointed out above, that’s silly. Let’s assume that there are only two people on Earth; you and a farmer. The farmer doesn’t have a clock or a watch, but you do. How does you setting your watch to a different time help him? It doesn’t. He won’t even be aware that anything happened. Besides that, why can’t farmers just get up earlier as the Sun rises earlier? Why do I need to change what my watch says?

Why only change the time twice a year? Why only by an hour? The amount of daylight changes throughout the year by four hours where I live. Why not change the time by two hours (to even out the four hour gain between sunrise and sunset)? Why not change it 12 times a year? Why not 52 times? Why not 365 times? Wouldn’t that make things a lot smoother?

Thanks for nothing, George.