[SMCARA] Daylight Savings Time info

[J D Delancy]

Daylight Savings Time infoInteresting reading


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Betty Mallay
Sent: Sunday, 02, April, 2006 02:27
Subject: Daylight Savings Time info


Daylight Savings - 50 Year Update


The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Measurements and Weights along with
its federal staff, in cooperation with the National Institute of Standards
and Technology, (NIST), is reminding all residents of one of the most
important adjustments in the last 50-years in this country that is about to
take place this coming weekend, April 1-2, 2006.

Citizens of every state are reminded to practice the annual "Spring Ahead,"
ritual, however this year's traditional practice takes on an even more
ominous meaning of importance for all members of the U.S. workforce,
including transportation -- trains, planes and buses, the farming and cattle
industry, as well all banking, the U.S. Postal Service, together with the
U.S. Stock Exchange.

Not since the introduction of the "metric system" here in the U.S., has a
one-time standard adjustment motivated as much controversy and stirred
national debate and discussion as the "48-hour turn-ahead."

Because of the annual clock adjustment in spring to turn clocks ahead
one-hour, "civil time" is occasionally adjusted by one second increments to
ensure that the difference between a uniform time scale defined by atomic
clocks does not differ from the Earth's normal rotational time by more than
0.9 seconds. Over the last 50-years, a loss of about 48-hours has occurred,
and so in order to "make-up" the lost time and "synch-up" all clocks with
the atomic clock in Fort Collins, Colorado, and to ensure that the lunar and
tidal schedules are normal, clocks are to be "turned forward" a full
48-hours.

The practice will in essence move all time ahead a full 48-hours, and will
in a sense, move the week's calendar from 2:00 a.m. Saturday morning to 2:00
a.m. Monday morning. All government, public agencies, banks, schools, along
with state, county and municipal works forces are to report to work as
normal in order to start their next work week, in essence, skipping the
entire weekend. All agencies and business will fully compensate their
workers with full sick-time and vacation time benefits, however the work
week will not exceed a full 40-hour schedule for payroll deductions.

Historically, the measurement of a "second" was defined in terms of the
rotation of the Earth as 1/86,400 of a mean solar day. Dating back to 1956,
the International Committee for Weights and Measures, under the authority
given it by the Tenth General Conference on Weights and Measures held
earlier in 1954, defined the second in terms of the period of revolution of
the Earth around the Sun for a particular epoch, because by then it had
become recognized that the Earth's rotation was not sufficiently uniform as
a standard of time. The Earth's motion was described in Newcomb's Tables of
the Sun, which provides a formula for the motion of the Sun at the epoch
1900 based on astronomical observations made during the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries.

This definition was ratified by the Eleventh General Conference on Weights
and Measures later in 1960. Ephemeris Time (ET) was defined as the measure
of time that brings the observed positions of the celestial bodies into
accord with the Newtonian dynamical theory of motion, or in this case, an
"epoch" of the tropical year of 31,556,925.9747 seconds of ephemeris time.

Following additional years of work U.S. Naval Observatory astronomers and
counterparts at the National Physical Laboratory located in Teddington,
England, determined the orbital motion of the Moon about the Earth, from
which the apparent motion of the Sun could be inferred, by measurement by an
atomic clock, and so in 1967, was defined the second, of atomic time in the
International System of Units. Because the Earth is constantly undergoing a
slight deceleration caused by the braking action of the tides, it is
possible to determine the average deceleration of the Earth and thus,
calculate and also adjust time measurement systems once every 50-years to
correspond the anticipated loss of time.

NOTE: Daylight Saving Time - for the U.S. and its territories - has NOT been
traditionally observed in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the
Virgin Islands, the Eastern Time Zone portion of the State of Indiana, and
by most of Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Indian Reservation in
Arizona), however, ALL states and territories will observe this leap ahead.
This is to resolve the difference within time zones and states. Everyone in
a particular time zone will now always be on the same time schedule.
Above all it is important to note that Saturday April 1st is indeed APRIL
FOOL'S DAY and that this Marketing Tip is a bunch of hogwash to get everyone
into the spirit of fun and lightheartedness that we all need to indulge from
time to time.  Have a wonderful weekend, and HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY!




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