Read more: 鈥�About time: Adventures in the fourth dimension鈥�
TIME is money, so the saying goes, but these days the position of the hands on a clock face represents a good deal more than that. Clocks don鈥檛 just tell us when to get up. Thanks to our reliance on GPS, they also help keep electricity flowing, our phones connected, and ships and planes on course.
Clocks also stir up plenty of strife. In fact the simple question 鈥淲hat鈥檚 the time?鈥� has become a source of passionate disagreement the world over.
Advertisement
Up until the 19th century, communities around the world were free to set their own local time. Then in 1876 a Scottish-born engineer called Sandford Fleming proposed standardising world time and dividing the globe into separate time zones. His concept of standard time formed the basis of the system adopted in 1884, but it took another 35 years before nations agreed a set of time zones covering the entire world. The result was 24 neat 15-degree wedges cutting smooth, longitudinal arcs down the Earth鈥檚 surface, each marking a time shift of 1 hour.
No organisation was given ultimate authority over these zones. So in the years that followed, their smooth edges were tugged out of shape to suit geopolitical and commercial interests. Nowhere have these contortions been more pronounced than at the place where the sun (technically) rises on the planet: , which runs north to south down the Pacific.
Somewhere near the equator lies Kiribati, a nation that sprawls over 33 islands. As originally drawn, the international date line divides this island group, putting Tarawa, its capital, 25 hours ahead of the rest of Kiribati. This made it the only nation in the world in which the word 鈥渢oday鈥� held two meanings.
In 1995, Kiribati took matters into its own hands and time-shifted its atolls and islands into tomorrow. This left a 3000-kilometre-long bulge in the international date line.
Not everyone was happy about it. Viewing the shift as a cynical ploy to pull in tourists for the approaching millennium celebrations, Kiribati鈥檚 Fijian neighbours called the change 鈥渞idiculous鈥�. And it was a step too far for the Samoan islands, which lie about 1200 kilometres to the south.
Samoans were already losing two full business days of communications each week 鈥� every Monday and Friday 鈥� with their major trading partners Australia and New Zealand, which lie some 21 hours ahead, to the south-west. Then came the Kiribati island鈥檚 time-shift, which served to further isolate the Samoans from their neighbours to the north. So this year Samoans will engage in some time travel of their own. The government has decreed that Samoa will , too. There will be no 29 December in 2011. Instead, Samoans will go to sleep on 28 December knowing they will spend all their tomorrows in a more commercially convenient time zone.
While some cannot agree on what day it is, others get truly riled over a trifling 3600 seconds 鈥� specifically, the twice-yearly ritual of adding or subtracting an hour for 鈥渄aylight saving鈥�. Struggles between supporters and opponents put all other disagreements over time zones in the shade.
(DST) was introduced during the first world war, when Germany moved an hour of daylight from morning to evening as a fuel-saving measure. Other nations followed suit, and the practice was called up again during the next world war, at which point it became known as 鈥渨ar time鈥�.
The nomenclature proved prescient: its adoption has triggered numerous conflicts since 1945, including a riot at Ohio University in Athens in 1998 during which nearly 2000 students attacked police after learning that DST would lose them an hour of drinking time. Yet nowhere has it stirred up more bad blood than in the epicentre of time-zone brawling: the American state of Indiana.
Indiana sits astride the boundary between the central and eastern time zones, and since the late 1940s there has been passionate debate between city dwellers and those in rural areas over the adoption of daylight saving. Farmers, for example, object to DST since they lose morning light, while business owners argue that DST helps to smooth their dealings with commercial centres such as Chicago and New York.
To settle the matter, in 1972 a new law required counties in the eastern time zone to dispense with DST, while it became mandatory in the central time zone. Several counties ignored this and over the next 30 years, others attempted to throw off their time manacles. In the resulting climate of temporal uncertainty, long-distance bus timetables were a riddle and some children could expect to arrive at school before they left home, while their parents would need to allot 90 minutes for a half-hour commute.
When was finally adopted in 2006, Indiana鈥檚 governor Mitch Daniels was unequivocal: 鈥淣othing will ever be more confusing than the world we鈥檙e leaving behind,鈥� he promised.
Perhaps. Yet Indianans love fisticuffs so much that they are rallying to a new cause. A disparate group calling itself the is now demanding that the entire state be moved, lock stock and barrel, onto central time. The real mystery is how Indiana鈥檚 clock campaigners find a moment to get anything done.
Read previous article: 鈥�Finding the age of everything鈥�
Read next: 鈥�Is time travel possible?鈥�