How Daylight Savings Disrupts Time.
You must have noticed that sometimes the Sun, fixed at noon on the Date Indicator of the Calendar-Clock, is associated with the number 13 on the number dial instead of 12. This happens during Daylight Savings Time (DST). Whoever invented DST had no regard for or understanding of the importance of local solar time, the time told by a Sundial. Our whole conception of time is based on experiments conducted with Sundials. If you’ve never made a Sundial, it’s an activity I highly recommend.
You can use the “method of equal altitudes” to mark a local meridian. Start by drawing several concentric circles around your vertical gnomon (a stick stuck vertically in the ground). In the morning, when the tip of the gnomon’s shadow crosses one of these arcs, mark that spot (A). In the afternoon, the tip of the shadow will once again cross the same circle and mark that spot (B). These two marks indicate when the Sun is at the same latitude (declination) in the sky. Now all you have to do is find the half way point between A and B, and draw a line from there to the gnomon and that line marks your local meridian.
From then on, at noon and at any time of year, the shadow cast by the Sun illuminating the gnomon will fall directly on this meridian line. Noon is by far the easiest astronomical event to measure accurately. Noon is by definition the middle of the daylight period, or 12 o’clock, when the Sun is directly above, in line with the center of the Earth and the local planetary meridian your Sundial is located on. Midnight is by definition the middle of the night, 24 or 12 a.m.
With Daylight Savings Time, noon and 12 o’clock are no longer synonymous, and midnight no longer occurs only in the middle of the night. In DST, noon or the middle of the day occurs at 13 o’clock and midnight occurs at 1 a.m. We just ignore the meaning of these important words. This is just another example of how we are disconnected from the Earth and her living rhythms. Nobody complains: “My Sundial no longer tells accurate time,” because no body uses a Sundial any more. Even though a Sundial is by far the most awe-inspiring form of calendar-clock ever. So much more and better information.
Check out Videos 15 and 16 where I talk more about Day Light Savings.