Clocks going back worldwide?

[partial]

Do the clocks go back in other countries than the uk? or is it to do with time zones?

[Spike_twox]

It depends on the country some have daylight saving some dont, must just be a government thing. my mother has told me before though of a year in the UK that the government decided to try out not putting the clocks back (80's maybe?).

[SteveD]

All the yellow ones here:

http://www.worldtimezone.com/daylight.htm

Having said that, I wish they would abolish it!

[JudgeJ]

I visit the Maldives quite regularly. Some of the individual islands (there are about 1200 of which about only 200 are inhabitated and less than 100 of these are designated "resort" islands) keep their own local time.

Generally the islands keep 5 hours ahead of GMT. However, some islands are an extra hour ahead of this, some change to this extra hour just for Ramadan, some just for the High season, etc etc.

I was once staying on an island where they had planned to alter the clocks to bring them back to GMT +5 (I think it was the end of Ramadan whilst I was there). Upon enquiring when this was to be done I was told "maybe Tuesday, or perhaps Wednesday - we haven't decided yet!).

Fortunately I did not have to travel on "Tuesday or Wednesday" so it made little difference to me. Some guests, who were due to fly home, were very worried that their connecting boat to the airport would be an hour adrift!

[brachiopod]

It is less to do with Time Zones, more to do with latitude

It is mainly countries in the mid-to-higher lattitudes that have some form of daylight saving.

In the low latitudes, (nearer the equator), there is little variance in the number of hours of daylight between Winter and Summer, so daylight saving is not worthwhile.

Similarly, in the highest latitudes (nearest the poles), daylight saving would be pretty useless when you might have only a couple of hours of darkness per day in the Summer (what difference would it make changing the clocks so that dawn started at 02.30 am rather than 01.30 am? )

It is thus generally countries in the mid-latitudes, (where an apparent 'extra' hour of daylight at a crucial time can make a difference), that we see Daylight Saving schemes.

Originally brought in during WW1as a means of increasing productivity and saving energy during the summer months. By moving the clocks forward in Spring, an hour of daylight that would have been wasted in the early morning when everyone was in bed, could be added to the evening, allowing for an extra hour of daylight productivity and reducing the need for an hour's worth of lighting.

In WW2, double daylight Saving Time was introduced, so that clocks moved forward two hours in the Spring.

[smorodina]

Spike_twox - your mother's memory is faulty! British Standard Time (as it was called) was trialed for three years from 1968 to 1971! This meant staying one hour ahead of GMT for the whole year.

[Ouisch]

Try keeping up with Daylight Saving Time in the US...They're hoping to eventually standardize it, but currently there are some areas that don't conform, such as the state of Indiana - part of it turns the clock back, and the other part doesn't.

I read an interesting article not too long ago about the original complaints from farmers when DST first went into effect. Their cows didn't know the difference, and continued to give milk at the same time, but the farmers were faced with the problem of changing train schedules and transporting the product, etc.