I’m not quite ready for Universal Geometic Time
My good friend Larry O’Brien has gone beyond eliminating Daylight Savings Time. If I understand him correctly, he also wants to abolish time zones.
Instead, he would implement Universal Geometric Time, which is a precise calculation of time at your exact longitude based on the angle of the sun overhead.
UGT can be calculated, with relative ease, by examining the raw data from a Global Position System receiver. You can use your longitude to compute a differential from Universal Time.
While Larry’s clearly onto something, it won’t be practical until GPS receivers are more pervasive (and become embedded into clocks and wristwatches).
Z Trek Copyright (c) Alan Zeichick
Here’s an idea. How about everyone use UTC?
Everyone in a certain geographic area would probably already know what time the sun rises and sets in their area.
Does it make a difference whether the sun rises at 06:00 and sets at 18:00, or whether it rises at 14:00 and sets at 02:00? The only thing that’s difficult is getting people used to the change. Once they are used to it, the new system (getting up at 15:00 and going to bed at 07:00) is just as good as the existing one (getting up at 7 am and going to bed at 11 pm).
Meanwhile, people across geographic distances would find it a lot easier to coordinate.