London Math

London math blows my mind. I am an accountant and yet I think I appear to be missing basic math skills. (See the elevator floors post)

I am going to hit daylight savings time in the US (march 10) and lose an hour. then hit daylight savings time in the UK (march 31) and lose an hour. Hypothetically, if I am not in the states for the fall daylight savings time (nov 3) and ONLY hit the one in the UK (oct 27)... Where does that extra hour go!? Do I lose an hour on my year?

I decided to take a poll from my coworkers (They were also the only ones online early in the morning)

Nathan	i think you're overthinking this
◄	don't overthink it

◄

it's just rounding

Andre
◄	oh, 21st century problems
◄	that is actually.... interesting to think about
◄	you do lose an hour in the year don't you?
◄	glitch in the matrix

Andy
◄	time change between TX and London is what
◄	6 or 7 hours?
◄	7?
◄	okay 7
◄	you go back October 29th say
◄	whats the time change then
◄	fall back
◄	so one additional hour
◄	you make my head hurt

The real answer is provided by Joerg. Pretty much I have come to realize that if there is any issue/question, he is probably the most knowledgeable person to go to (and on top of that, has this insane ability to tone it down to my level of understanding capabilities).

Short answer: You "make up the time" in flight.
Correct answer: You never "lose time" since it is a manmade concept and the only thing that actually changes is the time set on your clock (or the time that your iPhone states)

Any conversation with Joerg requires pen and paper. Below are my notes that demonstrate how my flight travel is actually where the hour is altered back and I don't end up with a year that is short an hour.

You will also note that there are other lessons on this paper. I am going to summarize them now because they are simply fascinating concepts - I will elaborate on them at a later date when it is appropriate to have another mega-long-blogpost-science lesson. (Don't say you didn't learn anything from reading my blog!)

• Time zones only started because of of the Train's timetables
• Every city used to have it's own time. All of them varied by seconds to hours from Washington DC time
• In 1884 there was an International Meridian Conference
• All countries were on board in 1956
• Leap seconds - We actually have leap seconds! Common people just don't know. turns out the world is slowing down and we have to have leap seconds to make up for it. This might not affect your everyday life, but for tons of scientists out there? its pretty difficult to coordinate.

Moral of the story: I will not lose an hour off my year.

"If you don't learn something new every day it wasn't worth living." - My grandfather.
Happy learning.