Natalie Whatley

Last night, while most of us enjoyed some shut-eye, we all took a short trip into the future thanks to daylight saving time. (There’s a lengthy, confusing, grammatical explanation for why it’s “saving” without the “s”. I’ll spare you the details if you’ll spare me the “gotcha” e-mail over what may appear an error.) Of course we didn’t really travel through time, but it did get me thinking of how cool it would be if we could wander around the past and future by manipulating our clocks. Which also led me to ask: If I could travel in time, would I? Would you?

My initial thought: a resounding yes!  But since our past, mistakes and all, brings us to the present, one would need to consider the ramifications of changing even minor decisions. Plus there’s the “grandfather paradox” in time travel where one could theoretically alter her self out of existence.  The physics behind avoiding that is more than my pea-brain can handle. However, I’d love to go back, visit, and hang out with our founding fathers while they hashed out The Declaration of Independence and later, our Constitution. I’d be embarrassed to report the mess we’ve made, but maybe they’d have some ideas on how to clean up.   

While time travel remains an unsolved problem in physics, physicists argue that one-way time travel into the future is at least arguably possible given time dilation, a phenomenon whereby an observer finds that another clock, identical to their own, is ticking away at a slower rate. If I understand that correctly, I can travel to the future, but would be unable to return.

I have mixed feelings about seeing the future, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be stuck there. But lately my mind is full of weighty matters I’d love to see resolved. Not knowing how things will turn out causes me a bit of anxiety, but then again, if I knew for certain things turned out badly, wouldn’t the anxiety be worse? Would I become complacent living with the knowledge things turned out well, thus changing that end also?  Deep stuff.

All the mind-boggling physics aside, daylight saving time was brought about for practical reasons. The Germans were the first to use it, and the United States initially put it into practice during World War I. It was suspended afterwards, and reinstituted during World War II, only to be suspended again after energy needs lessened after war production.

In 1966, the U.S. Uniform Time Act mandated nationwide implementation of daylight saving time. Prior to that, communities decided whether or not to follow; there are stories of train conductors changing their watches seven times over 35 miles! I suppose something needed to be done. Since then, time policies have been tinkered with over the years.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 lengthened daylight saving time, and went into effect in 2008. Proponents claimed the move would save ten thousand barrels of oil per day. After using the longer standard last year for the first time, the Department of Energy now says the energy savings are relatively small. And, doctors say the lengthened daylight saving time wreaks havoc on our internal clocks by “springing forward” before the vernal equinox — the official beginning of spring, and also when the hours of sunlight and darkness are close to equal.  For a few weeks, our mornings will be very dark. I sort of feel like a lab rat.

So, as I wake up to the first morning of this year where we took an hour here, and put it there, am I suffering the after-effects of time dilation? Nah, my pupils are just huge because it’s really dark. But I saw myself waking up in an hour.  Cuckoo!

© 2009 Natalie Whatley

Tags: daylight saving time, internal clock, time travel