Category Archives: Time v3

Time v3 is the new name for what I used to call “post-industrial time.”

About Time v3: https://nathanruffing.com/aboutpostindustrialtime/

All, Industrial Change Surfing, Time v3

Time v3 Reading List

Some great reading about timekeeping in the Industrial Revolution. Here are some examples:

The Clocks are Telling Lies by Scott Alan Johnston. Centers around the International Meridian Conference. Talks a lot about the distinction between scientific professionals’ and amateurs’ perception of timekeeping.

Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism by E. P. Thompson. Discusses the transition from natural time to using clocks to regulate labor.

Greenwich Time and the Longitude by Derek Howse. Recommended by Bjorn Kartomten.

All, Time v3

Time v3 and Daylight Savings Time

There is a certain a group of people who hates the daylight savings time change because it “arbitrarily disconnects us from nature.” One day we wake up and the sun is up. The next day we wake up at the “same time” and it is dark (or vice versa when we go off daylight savings time).

To my timekeeping-conscious friends out there, we have something in common: a dislike of brutish machine timekeeping. However, I believe what we really dislike is industrial timekeeping as a whole, not just daylight savings time. The daylight savings time change is like a tiny semiannual glitch in the matrix of industrial timekeeping that draws our attention just enough to feel something is wrong but passes before we really focus the energy to investigate the true enormity of the problem.

The problem is industrial time – since the 18th century – and the solution is Time v3.

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Celestial Movement: Know Less Understand More

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The following are true and do not change perceptibly over an entire human lifetime.

  • The non-sun stars do not move relative to each other. Not now, not over thousands of years, not anytime we will ever know about. The stars remain a fixed spherical image we gaze out at from the inside.
  • The north star and southern cross remain in the same positions in the sky and do not move relative to an observer on Earth, even as Earth rotates. They mark the axis of rotation of Earth. Correct, they do not move at all. You could build a structure pointed at the north star one night and if the structure doesn’t move, it points at the north star day and night season after season year after year forever, whether you can see the north star or not, it’s there. (The structure would be called a gnomon, if you care).
  • All of the non-sun stars/constellations remain in the exact same latitude and therefore trace the exact same line through the sky each time Earth rotates, every day of our lives, no exceptions. The line a star traces through the sky at your location peaks at 90° – [your latitude] + [latitude of the star] always.
  • Earth’s rotational axis is not tilted. Earth’s orbital plane around the sun is tilted! When orienting celestial objects, we are forced to choose what we consider “upright.” Earth’s gravity cannot dictate “upright” for celestial objects. If you imagine Earth’s rotational axis as upright, the north star remains fixed as “north” or “up” and the orbital plane is then tilted 23° meaning Earth “moves north and south” as it orbits, or moves “up and down.”
  • The sun. slightly more complicated, but helpful because the sun is bright. What is a line of latitude? What does a line of latitude look like? The blindingly bright sun traces a line of latitude through the sky every day. On equinox days, the sun traces the 0° line of latitude (celestial equator) and on the solstices the sun traces the +/- 23.4° line of latitude. In between, the sun gradually traces lines of latitude from 0° to 23.4° to 0° to -23.4° and back to 0° again throughout the year. Each day the sun traces a slightly different line of latitude as Earth orbits.
  • Nobody is good at three-dimensional spherical-angle geometry! Nobody! Astronomers are not good at it. Nobody is! Then why does the current zodiac constellation represent the constellation behind the sun that we cannot see?? Because nobody is good at three dimensional geometry! Astronomers for millennia past and still today use the sun as a “pointer.” Nothing in the sky points like the sun. The sun is such a bright “pointer” that you cannot see what is behind it – but remember that the stars do not move relative to each other so if you have some idea of what the starry sky looks like, and you know the current zodiac constellation, you can reference the rest of the starry sky off of the sun itself. “Pisces is shining bright this month!” True statement – even though Pisces is only up during the day because looking forward the sun means looking toward the current zodiac constellation. We are currently in Pisces. “The sun pointer is moving toward the constellation Aries.” Another true statement. The line the sun traces through the starry background as we orbit is called the “ecliptic.”

Once you have some firm ground to stand on, you can start to remember some more basics and build. If you get confused, re-read the above and remind yourself that many things in the sky do not change!

  • Orion, the most widely-recognized constellation, is on the celestial equator. Therefore Orion rises directly east and sets directly west. Orion is “up” ~12 hours and “down” ~12 hours. Orion’s path peaks at 90° – [your latitude] above your horizon (directly overhead the equator). Also, Orion is visible from everywhere on Earth.
  • Orion is directly south of the border of Taurus and Gemini. The Taurus Gemini border marks the northern hemisphere summer solstice, so on the summer solstice the sun points near Orion. On the winter solstice, Orion is high in the sky at midnight.
  • Polaris, the north star, is located directly north at [your latitude]° above the horizon, always. Most people use the Big Dipper to find Polaris.
  • The two stars in the Big Dipper aligned with Polaris point to the ecliptic at Leo near its border with Virgo, so near the sun’s location at the autumnal equinox.
  • The Milky Way’s bright galactic center is among Sagittarius, specifically Sagittarius A. It is 29° south of the celestial equator so therefore peaks at 61° – [your latitude] in your sky (more visible in southern hemisphere). Being near the northern hemisphere winter solstice, it is most visible in northern hemisphere during summer.
All, Time v3

Time v3 Clock Links

Time v3 Beijing

Time v3 Clintonville

Time v3 Cusco

Time v3 Delaware Ohio

Time v3 Grant Park, Milwaukee

Time v3 at Greg and Kelly’s

Time v3 at Hampton Roads Convention Center

Time v3 Heverlee

Time v3 at Hiroshima Central Park

Time v3 Carolina Beach Boardwalk

Time v3 Ostrander Ohio

Time v3 at Plexus Capital

Time v3 at Igreja da Vinha, Pacajá

Time v3 Petteys House

Time v3 Ruhan’s Crib

Time v3 Santiago

Time v3 Simple Kneads Bakery

Time v3 Uncle Tim Bongo Bar

Time v3 at Times Square

All, Time v3

Read Time v3 with an Accurate Mental Model

  • You are the observer in the center of the clock. Everything moves relative to the observer.
  • The sun position on the clock represents the actual longitudinal position of the sun.
  • Solar noon is noon on the clock. “Solar noon” and “clock noon” are one and the same. When the sun is directly overhead the observer, it is noon, and half of the day has passed.
  • Sunrise and sunset are depicted and labeled. Sunrise marks time 0:00 each day and sunset marks the day length. The day length changes gradually throughout the year with the seasons.
  • When the sun sets, the “official time” turns negative and begins to count down to sunrise. However, if you mark an event at +12:30 time v3 during an 11 hour day, +12:30 is visible on the clock even though the sun has set, the official time v3 is negative, and your event will be held in the dark. “+12:30” is still 12 hours and 30 minutes after sunrise and still a usable time.
  • The moon position on the clock represents the actual longitudinal position of the moon. Moon directly overhead on the clock, the moon is directly overhead the observer, “moon noon.” Moonrise and moonset are off to the side, just like the sun. I am adding small moonrise and moonset lines in the next version.
  • The moon phase is represented by the sun’s position relative to the moon and Earth, easily observable on the clock. Project the sun out to “infinity” and the sun points to the moon phase marked on the moon itself. Therefore the moon phase on the clock is determined just how it is in real life.
  • The locations marked on the clock’s Earth represent prominent geographical features approximately every 15° longitude. Therefore the sun passes one of the geographical features every hour. If you want to know the approximate time at a different location, just imagine the observer on the clock is at the location with everything else right where it is. Tilt your head if it helps or physically turn the clock on its side.
  • The sun pointing to the stars marks the seasons, just like in real life. The constellations on the clock are the constellations (official IAU) the sun points to throughout the year as Earth orbits. They are zodiac constellations on the ecliptic, for telling seasons, not the constellations on the celestial equator. The difference is minor (see below).
  • The stars pass overhead on the clock when those stars actually reach their peak to the observer. Star noon on the clock is star noon in real life.
  • Of note, the prominent constellation of Orion is on the celestial equator just south of the Taurus/Gemini border Orion borders both Taurus and Gemini. Therefore Orion is an excellent star reference to align the clock to real life.
  • The thin white line behind the equinox in Pisces shows 1,000 years of precession of the equinoxes. Yes, one thousand years, one millennium, 500 years in the past and 500 years into the future. The equinoxes do not move very much.

Understand Celestial Movement by Knowing Less

Notes

  • three buttons:
    1. 5040x with pause feature
    2. 21,600x with pause feature
    3. “sunrises / sunsets snapshots” time lapse
  • useful sounds?
  • add moonrise and moonset
  • The horizons showing day length are the only indications of latitude. I want to keep it this way. 2D, time is the 3rd dimension.
  • unify the new year globally making it the exact equinox. Focus locally, celebrate large events globally.
  • clock ticks in background on phones? battery life?
  • Digital doesn’t match graphic on some time lapses. Maybe only on past years?
  • digital font size correct for computers and phones
  • make “copy-able link” for the link generator
  • 90° and 270° ecliptic longitude are the solstices, correct?
  • astrolabe, Incan Inthuatana,
Fundamental Concept

Every movement of this clock is related to a naturally-occurring phenomenon. The sun, moon, and constellations are actually physically overhead the longitude physically shown on the clock. The only man-made concept is the unit of time: hours/minutes/seconds.

Within the constraints of being two-dimensional and using only concentric circle movement, the clock graphically displays celestial movement as accurately and with as much detail as possible in a way that promotes a practical mental model for the observer.

The horizons move to show the correct day and night length. They move in the correct direction to match the idea that the sun follows a longer path in the sky on longer days and shorter path on shorter days. In post-industrial time, noon is when the sun is directly overhead. This clock shows noon at the various world locations by being directly overhead the longitude. “Solar noon” is an industrial time concept.

The angle of the horizons does not directly correspond to the azimuth of the sunrise and sunset itself. For example, the sun being overhead a longitude location on Earth 100 degrees from your longitude when it rises does not mean the sun will rise 10 degrees north from east.

Two-dimensional is convenient for hanging on a wall, inexpensive to construct, can be displayed on a screen, and in reality people prefer 2D. 3D TVs never caught on. The outdoors is 3D enough.

Concentric circle movement is practical to construct and control. In addition, almost all the movement of the objects in the sky is due to the rotation of Earth.

Nature presents us with an infinity of detail that the clock could depict. Computers enable us to easily do this and most products show maximum detail. This clock selectively provides the user with just the basis required to comprehend celestial movement in order to inspire the user to abandon the technology for the outdoors and more fully appreciate natural reality.

The Observer

On this clock, all objects are referenced to the observer as though the observer is standing aligned to the rotational axis of Earth. “Aligned to the rotational axis of Earth” sounds like an unnecessary complication, but it means all the objects move (almost) continuously and you can tell time of day, day length, night length, moon phase, moon rise and set, seasons, constellation and star positions, and even approximate world times, all using an intuitive mental model.

The observer is at the center of the post-industrial clock.

Observer’s Imagination

Notice, the gnomon of a sundial is aligned to the rotational axis of Earth. The ancients knew how to think about this. If you want to be familiar with the movement of the Earth and the relative motion of the sky, you must align with the Earth. If you accept the one complication of aligning with Earth, all else naturally falls into place.

You might say gravity is the biggest obstacle to aligning yourself to Earth’s rotational axis. True. To eliminate the gravity problem, just imagine you are on the north pole. If you were sitting on the north pole during an equinox, you would see all the objects on the clock rotating around your horizon just like they do on the clock.

Rotation and Orbit

Notice “rotate” means an individual object rotates, and “orbit” means an object moves in a path around another object. Objects can rotate and orbit in different planes, but because of the way the solar system was formed, rotation is mostly closely aligned with orbit. One notable example of misalignment is the tilt of Earth’s rotation relative to its orbit around the sun.

The Sun, Horizons, and Time

The position of the sun determines all time-related items.

The rotational position of Earth is shown by the sun appearing to move relative to the observer. The position of the sun in relation to the eastern horizon and western horizon tells the time of day.

Day length is determined by the distance the sun must travel through the sky from the eastern horizon to the western horizon. Day length is shown by the position of the two horizons. Night length is the remainder of the 24-hour period as the sun returns to the eastern horizon. The horizons move because of the tilt of Earth and its orbit around the sun.

The sun points to the season on the backdrop of the stars. The 12 Zodiac constellations are used because they are aligned with Earth’s equator and are visible from most positions on Earth. The Zodiac seasonal periods are named based on when the constellation is aligned with the sun. Ironically, it is exactly during a particular Zodiac constellation’s season that the constellation is not visible in the night sky because it is directly behind the sun.

The stars move around the observer because of the rotation of Earth, like the sun. Because of the orbit of Earth around the sun, the stars actually appear to move slightly faster than the sun. In a way, the stars “chase” the sun across the sky. Because of this, the constellation that is low on the western horizon immediately after sunset indicates the next season. The constellation will “chase” the sun down, setting because of Earth’s rotation and then each successive night set four minutes earlier until it sets with the sun.

Moon phase is determined by the position of the moon relative to the sun. The position of the moon relative to the sun is immediately apparent on the clock giving the user an intuitive mental model of moon phase. The moon rises and sets independently of the sun, so there are separate horizons for the moon.

Relative to the Observer

The stars do not move relative to each other, so you can relate your favorite constellations to the Zodiac constellations to quickly know where they are if desired. The position of the Zodiac constellations on the clock are accurate relative to the observer. The observer need only adjust for latitude. If a constellation is directly overhead on the clock, it is directly south in the northern hemisphere or north in the southern hemisphere, or overhead on the equator.

Approximate world time is asking the question, “What time is it to other observers?” or “Where is the sun relative to other observers?” The user can look at the other cities on the clock and see where the sun is relative to them. If the sun is directly over another location on the clock, it is noon in that location. The sun is moving relative to other observers just like it is moving on the clock. If the sun appears directly to the side of another observer, it is near rising or near setting. If directly below, it is midnight to that observer.

Sun/Moon/Stars to Sundial to Pendulum to Quartz to Atomic Vibrations to Smartphones to Sundial to Sun/Moon/Stars

Progress is a cycle.

Pre-history: humans evolved with celestial objects ruling our lives and became familiar with them. The sun and moon are encoded into our genes in our circadian rhythm.

Thousands of years: humans quantified the movement of the sun with sundials, and used charts for the phases of the moon and seasons.

Industrial Revolution: humans used rudimentary machines to club our minds to submit to rigid schedules.

Post-Industrial Clocks: humans use advanced machines to conform technology to nature and re-connect with our natural selves.

Like this clock, the gnomon of a sundial is oriented parallel to the rotational axis of the Earth. If you called this clock an “indoor sundial” you are not too far off. However, “indoor solar, lunar, and celestial fully-automated schedule” would be more accurate. Therefore, is this new? No, but is anything new? Not according to the Bible,

Ecclesiastes 1

9  What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. 10  Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us.

Life is a cycle and it is time to revisit some of our past. We now have the time and resources to do it.

Knowing what the sky looks like can certainly be done with charts, phone apps, websites, maps, but to develop a useful mental model, you need to periodically and quickly see something that is practically relatable to practical day-to-day events. This is our natural ability that was erased by industrial time. Industrial time is great for rigid old obsolete machines to cheaply give us rigid schedules, but computers enable machines to imitate nature and can enable us to re-connect with nature rather than brutally beating nature out of our minds with the incessant ticking of pendulums and gears. Computers can be better, let’s use them.

history, manufacturing, time, astronomy,

All, Time v3

About Industrial Time

About Post-Industrial Time, click here.

The Fundamental Disruption of Industrial Time

Time, measuring the passage of time, and telling the time of day, are among the most fundamental aspects of human life. The Industrial Revolution changed how we tell time so fundamentally that we don’t even realize that there was ever another way. I call the current conventional format for measuring time “Industrial Time.”

You probably are familiar with Industrial Time as “time,” or “normal clocks,” or the answer to the question:

What time is it?

Our current time format is so widely adopted that it seems odd to give it a specific name to differentiate from another format for telling time – since we don’t currently use any other ways to tell time – but we should give it a name because it really is new. It is called “Industrial Time.”

Industrial Time and the Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution has brought about such a pace of change that Industrial Time – despite its earth shaking consequences to our daily lives – is lost among numerous equally important and fundamental changes that we have quickly accepted as normal. What is really weird is we accept things so arbitrary and disconnected from natural reality simply because our lives are short and the generations that knew another way have died. The Industrial Revolution began around 1760, which at 25 years per generation, is about 10 generations past. 10 generations is not many, but it is enough to almost completely wipe away life experience of a different reality.

Our perception of the world is based on our own short realities. This works when the world remains the same for thousands of years at a time, but when the world changes fundamentally every two or three generations, we should make an effort to understand the changes. In my Industrial Change Surfing category, I consider industrial advancements that we accept as normal, even though they are all less than 10 generations old.

Post-Industrial Time

Click here for Post-Industrial Time clocks.

About Post-Industrial Time – click here.

All, Time v3

About Time v3 (Post-Industrial Time)

Post-Industrial Time, A Timeline of Progress

Time v1: Pre-Industrial Time, until ~1775

Without accurate clocks, one looks to the sun, stars, and moon as a reference for time. This is pre-industrial time.

Time v2: Industrial Time, 1775 – present

Captain James Cook, on his second voyage from 1772-1775 used a watch / chronometer, that cost a third as much as a ship cost at the time that was accurate enough to determine his longitude as he sailed around the world. The watch was called the K1. The K1 was designed by John Harrison, then Marcum Kendall successfully crafted a copy, and Kendall was rewarded by the British government. Basically, the K1 watch told Captain Cook that the sun was early or late as he traveled, something we would understand as “switching time zones.” Prior to this, Cook would have looked to the sun and not known “what time it is” in his home of England and would have continuously adjusted to the sun. By knowing “how early or late” the sun was, he had a steady reference, and Cook used the reference to calculate his longitude. Captain Cook continued to use the new watch for the rest of his travels as an indispensable navigational guide. This was the first time a person referenced a machine rather than celestial objects to determine the time. This is Industrial Time. This is the time format we are familiar with today. A century after Cook’s voyages, in 1884, at the International Meridian Conference, world leaders discussed and chose, …a meridian to be employed as a common zero of longitude and standard of time reckoning throughout the world. Time zones were born. Industrial Time calculated by machines effectively replaced nature to determine “what time it is” and we never looked back. Until now.

Time v3: 2018 and Beyond

Machines are now flexible enough to give us a time format that is accurate and precise while still remaining relevant to the natural world around us. Enter Time v3 (Post-Industrial Time). The time v3 at your location is: During the day, the amount of time, in the standard hours and minutes to which we are accustomed, since the sun rose. Sunrise occurs at time 00:00. Time v3 also includes the day length for reference. Sunset occurs when the time equals the day length. Midday is half that amount of time, and the sun will always be directly in the north or south at midday (or overhead). Example: The time is now sunrise plus hh:mm:ss. The day length is hh:mm. The night length is hh:mm. At night, the time v3 is the amount of time until the next sunrise. At night time v3 counts down from the total night length to zero. Example: The time is now sunrise minus hh:mm:ss. Tomorrow’s day length is hh:mm.

Time v3 Clocks for Various Locations Here

  You will immediately notice that post-industrial time is location-specific. It is meant to be used locally, only with people who are within a normal day’s commute of you. Within that space it varies only a few minutes. It can be used within a city and surrounding suburbs for example. It can be used to set the time that employees arrive at work in order to have them arrive at a reasonable hour with respect to nature, the whole year round. It is not useful for coordinating flight arrival times, phone calls outside your city, etcetera. Post-industrial time does not replace industrial time. Industrial time is still useful and in fact, industrial time makes it easy for computers to calculate post-industrial time. An exception is that post-industrial time will make daylight savings time changes obsolete. Post-industrial time needs industrial time, and it improves on industrial time. It uses industrial time and the flexibility of machines (computers) to give us a time that is more natural.

Post-Industrial Time, Live It Love It

Post-industrial time connects us with the people around us, who we can relate to in person, by bringing to attention what we share with our local friends: sunrise, sunset, midday, longer and shorter periods of light and darkness. Post-industrial time puts nature back where it belongs, ahead of the machines and our man-made conventions by measuring our industrial lives using natural events rather than measuring natural events with industrial inventions. Post-industrial time forces the machines to adapt to us, rather than the other way around by directing the machines to give us time that is based on nature. Post-industrial time is fun by shaking up something we thought to be older than the hills. Post-Industrial time is a better future by remembering the past.

Keep Industrial Time!

I am not opposed to Industrial Time. I believe it should remain, and Industrial Time should continue to be used in its current state in many situations. Industrial Time works well in an industrial, global world! However, Industrial Time is new, weird, arbitrary, and disconnected from the natural events it measures. It should be treated as such, and it should have its own name, Industrial Time.

Post-Industrial Time Clock Projects

  • https://nathanruffing.com/timev3/
  • Android app: currently on github
  • Javascript version for website: currently on github.
  • Contact nate@rr34.us for access to the repositories.
  • Physical clock on a Raspberry Pi: under development
  • i-phone app: Swift?
  • Aaron’s Raspberry Pi

For Developers

We are actively coding in order to enable the use of Post-Industrial Time with clocks.

Post-Industrial Time Coding Notes

At a given location, the post-industrial time is:

Daytime

If daytime at location, i.e. the sun is up / above the horizon. i.e. the most recent event was a sunrise rather than a sunset, then the post-industrial time is: Sunrise + hh:mm:ss. The day length is hh:mm. The night length is hh:mm. Where the sunrise is the most recent sunrise at that location. The total day length is included for the current period of daylight for reference.

Nighttime

If nighttime at location, i.e. the sun is down / below the horizon. i.e. the most recent event was a sunset rather than a sunrise, then the post-industrial time is: Sunrise – hh:mm:ss. Tomorrow’s day length is hh:mm. The night length is hh:mm. Where the sunrise referenced is the next sunrise to occur at that location, and the amount of time is the amount of time until that event. It counts down to zero at night. The total night length should also be included for the current period of nighttime.

The Polar Regions

The issue arises in the polar regions where the sun does not set during a particular industrial calendar date / rotation of the earth. When this is the case, the post-industrial time still continues to count up since the sun last rose above the horizon, and the day length is still the total time until the sun sets. Near the poles, the sun may remain above the horizon for months at a time. This means that the post-industrial time WOULD reach over 4,000 hours. Half of a year is 4,380 hours. In the polar regions, when the day length exceeds 24 hours, the unit “rotations” must be introduced and the post-industrial time becomes: Sunrise + rr:hh:mm:ss. The day length is rr:hh:mm. One rotation = 24 hours. *See note. This is required in order for the post-industrial time to continue to have meaning with respect to where the sun is in the sky. In the arctic region, the most recent sunset will have been in the south, and therefore the rr value will tick up approximately when the sun crosses south. As the sun circles around just above the horizon (arctic region), the sun will be in the west at about xx:06:xx:xx, north at ~xx:12:xx:xx, east at ~xx:18:xx:xx, cross south again at ~+1:00:xx:xx. This will be true for the entire duration of a multiple rotation day. Day length [should be?] within a few minutes of when the rr value ticks up and day lengths will be within a few minutes of multiples of 24 hour periods. *Note, this is all relative to the sun and not relative to the stars, don’t try to get clever and use a “sidereal day” for the number of rotations. The rotations are relative to the sun.

All, Time v3

Time to Re-Implement our Old Time

I propose that we re-implement an old time format that makes much more sense. Many might consider it a “new” time format, but that’s because nobody today is old enough to remember how we did time before. You would have to be ~150 years old. Computers and smart phones finally enable us to wake up from the madness. The time format goes like this:

-What time is it?
-“It is plus 47 minutes right now.” (which it actually was when and where I wrote this, because the sun rose 47 minutes ago here in Columbus, Ohio).

-What time is sunset?
-“Sunset today is at plus 14:16.” which it actually will be in Columbus, Ohio today, 11 May, because the day is 14 hours and 16 minutes long
or, equally:
-“Sunset is at 9:43 until.” because the sun sets tonight 9 hours and 43 minutes before it rises tomorrow, 12 May. The night is 9 hours and 43 minutes long.
9:43 + 14:16 = 23:59. The sunrises might be slightly off exactly 24 hours, but always by less than a minute (or so).

-What time is midday today?
-“Midday today is around plus 7 hours I think. Oh wait, let me think, I guess it’s at plus 7:08 today we just said what time sunset is duh.”

-What time do you get up?
-“I wake up at 30 until everyday.”

-What time do you go to bed?
-“I go to bed anywhere from 6:30-’til to 8:30-’til. I like to get 6-8 hours of sleep.”

-What time does work start?
-“My boss is weird. He starts work late in the summer and super-early in the winter when it’s dark and cold. It constantly shifts day-to-day. Also, one day in the spring and again in the fall, it suddenly jolts all at once by a whole hour. So disorienting, but I’ve been hearing rumors that we are going to stop doing this soon.”

This clearly begs the question, do seconds, minutes and hours make sense? Or should we be using a fraction of the sun’s path in the sky? Yes, minutes and hours still make sense, and they have been around much longer than this system of time we have now. The 24 hour day is literally older than Jesus. Hipparchus standardized the length of an hour and called it “equinoctial time.” Hours and minutes are arbitrary units, but a sun-fraction unit would mean that the unit itself changes day-to-day. We probably don’t want that.

Then what do we call the old time system that we used for ~134 years, it looks like, since about 1884? I propose that we call it “IMC Time” after the International Meridian Conference that proposed it in 1884. Or, we could just call it “Industrial Time,” because it was implemented and used in the early years of the Industrial Revolution.

Of course, we can continue to refer to the 12-hour time format with AM and PM as “Ambiguous Time,” or “Confusing and Stupid Time.”