The next time you find yourself carrying out the twice-yearly ritual of trying to get every clock in your house to just show the same number for once, rest assured you are but the latest in a long line of people who have attempted–and ultimately failed–to make time perfectly obey human rules.
Looking at you here, leap years.
Every year, hundreds of millions of people voluntarily turn their lives upside down by setting their clocks forward one hour in the spring and back one hour in the autumn on a particular date mandated by the government wherever they happen to live, unless that government is in one of these states, territories, or countries that doesn't play along.
Because the only thing more confusing than jumbling up every clock in the world is jumbling up some of them.
Daylight saving time (yes, it's singular, not plural) is a perfect example of how a few people with the best of intentions can end up annoying millions of the rest of us for the better part of a century.
And it's time we take an honest look at how we got to this place where half the world comes unstuck in time twice a year, and ask if the supposed advantages for springing forward and falling back still hold up…
Hey smart people,Joe here.
Let's start with some history!
The first person to dream up daylight saving time was none other than Benjamin Franklin, who while living in Paris forgot to close his shutters after a late night out and was rudely awakened by the sun at 6AM instead of his usual hour of noon.
He was astonished to realize that, in fact, the sun makes light as soon as it rises and everyone was wasting beaucoup money spending part of their waking hours in candlelight instead of taking advantage of the big bright thing in the sky.