Daylight saving

Which is easier?  To change the setting of every clock on planet earth or to change human habits?

Like most countries in Europe, Ireland observes Daylight Saving Time (DST), with the clock shifting forward one hour at the end of March and one hour backward at the end of October.  The USA has a similar scheme but uses different dates. The situation is even more confusing in Australia where only some states (the green ones in the map) adopt DST.

Living in a community we have rather more clocks than an average house: I've just adjusted 13 of our more public clocks, and one subsequently fell off its wall fixing and broke its glass - duh...

The EU proposed to abolish the time change in September 2018 following a public consultation, during which, 4.6 million European citizens called for the practice to be brought to an end, however its usage still persists.

George Hudson (who has a lot to answer for) was the first to propose modern DST in 1895 with Germany being the first to implement it on May 1, 1916, in the hopes that it would save energy during World War I. Whether it did is open to question but in any case the system has persisted since then.

If indeed it is better to have lighter winter mornings (at the expense of darker evenings) why change the clock? Whatever is wrong with an institution deciding to shift its starting and ending times by an hour to achieve the same end? 

Having just informed my Physics class that two underlying laws pervade humanity:

(1) there's no such thing as a free lunch, aka you won't get something for nothing, and

(2) cause must precede its effect (as parodied in Alice through the looking glass) aka the "arrow of time".

The latter observes that time moves only in one direction, and DST violates this principle. I wonder what would have happened if I had set a repeating alarm on my smart phone for 01:55 hours last night?  I suppose it would have rung at 01:55 and then again, two hours later, at 01:55. Which underlines the absurdity. If I had been sufficiently bothered I'd have tried it, but I preferred not to interrupt my beauty sleep. And had the switch been during daylight hours, would the sun have moved back?

DST was (and is) clearly a political agenda. No engineer, computer programmer or scientist in their right mind would propose anything so asinine or contrary to reason. We technical people get around it by adopting UTC for any serious investigation, but we cannot totally distance ourselves from DST because we have to live with the rest of humanity who appear to be more politically than technically minded. Hence my spending  half an hour or more adjusting 13 clocks and breaking one.

Having belaboured my point, I admit that there is a Biblical passage about time going backwards (and another about time standing still):

And Isaiah said, “This shall be the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do the thing that he has promised: shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or go back ten steps?” And Hezekiah answered, “It is an easy thing for the shadow to lengthen ten steps. Rather let the shadow go back ten steps [or degrees KJV].” And Isaiah the prophet called to the LORD, and he brought the shadow back ten steps, by which it had gone down on the steps of Ahaz. (2Ki 20:9-11)

about which there has long been the rumour that NASA computer programmers proved that this event actually happened, now mostly debunked. I remember my father alluding to this - it was the sort of thing that would have tickled his interest. This link summarises the subject.

Daylight saving

According to Wikipedia, the idea of so called Daylight Saving was first proposed by George Hudson in 1895. And this imbecile system has continued until the present day, although much of the world sensibly eschews it.

George

It is an example of politics trying to gain control over nature. Politicians would do better to concentrate on what they are good at.  But maybe that leaves them with so much spare time on their hands that they cannot help but come up with ridiculous schemes. Leastways George apparently came up with the idea in his spare time.

Without doubt the "arrow of time" moves in one direction only, and a clock is a device that measures that progress. No time machine has yet been invented that can reverse the flow. Except for daylight saving.

If indeed it is helpful to shift work hours biannually, whatever is wrong with simply changing the times at which the work day begins and ends, rather than changing the clock?