[ExI] clock fans

[spike at rainier66.com]

Today USians went thru the semiannual ritual of setting our clocks back an
hour.  This means more sunlight in the morning.  But of course the sunrise
continues to get a few minutes later each week for the next coupla months.

 

The weekend on which we set our clocks is not the equinox.  So how do they
figure out which weekend to set the clocks?

 

A long time ago I heard the notion that they choose it such that there is an
hour difference between sunrise time today and sunrise time on the latest
sunrise of the year, so that USians wake up at the darkest time of the year
thrice: the day before the fall time change, the latest sunrise in the first
week of January, then the day after we undo the silliness in the spring.

 

However. it doesn't work that way.  For USians living way north, the
difference between sunrise times varies greatly over the year, whereas those
in the southern USA, such as Florida where I cheerfully squandered my own
childhood and youth, the time doesn't vary as much.  So in the south USA,
the hour time change overcompensates for the varying sunrise time, but up
north it undercompensates.

 

So. there is a latitude where it really does what I heard it was designed to
do: make the first week of November, the first week of January and the
second week of March the darkest wakeup weeks.

 

Without even solving an equation, I looked up and found that latitude.  I
did it the lazy-man's way: picking a city, asking for its sunrise table,
seeing if the delta between now and 5 Jan is greater or less than an hour,
choosing another city.  Got it on the second try.  That latitude is.

 

. do you want to try it?  Or just scroll down?

 

OK then, scroll down.  The breakeven latitude is.

 

 

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.about 45 degrees north.

 

OK then, I shoulda figured out that is the logical place to design the
system.

 

spike

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