Most of us accept the fact that in March we have to change our clocks from standard time to daylight saving time. The TV weatherman reminds us that it’s “spring ahead, fall back.” Actually, the time change in March now comes about a week before the first day of spring, so I guess a better memory device would be “March forward.” Daylight saving time (there is no s at the end of the word saving) seems to have been with us forever. There was a time, however, when the biannual changing of the clocks caused considerable debate here in Derry.
Daylight saving time (DST) was first proposed in a 1789 tongue-in-cheek essay by Ben Franklin. He reckoned that changing the clocks could save the people of Paris a fortune by cutting down on their used of candles. By Franklin’s calculations, there would be a savings of exactly 65,050,000 pounds of candle wax. The founding father didn’t push the idea too strongly because he admitted he never got up before noon anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment