[LEAPSECS] [time-nuts] Leap Quirks

Jonathan E. Hardis jhardis at tcs.wap.org
Mon Jan 5 09:03:28 EST 2009



>It is also remarkable that about one-fourth (12) of the U.S. states

>are bisected by timezones


14 states:

Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska,
Kansas, Texas, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Florida


>I would take this as evidence that people actually care about solar time.


Of course they do ... at a tolerance of +/- 30 minutes. You can't
use this as an argument that people care about solar time at a
tolerance of seconds. Indeed, whenever the weather lady on the
evening news tells me the times for sunrise and sunset, it is only to
a resolution of 1 minute, and not corrected for different portions of
the viewing area.

Time zones were established, and are maintained, for the convenience
of commerce. Your time zone has a lot to do with the nearest big
city with which your community trades.

- Jonathan


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