Why save the daylight?

Why save the daylight?
October 30, 2001
By Peter Stair

Is it just me, or has everyone else been showing up late for things recently? For example, I went to a review session yesterday — right on time — but there was no one there. I waited for an hour before people started coming!

I went to dinner last night, I even showed up half an hour late, and…nothing. My dorm-mates were still cooking. And then, just this morning, I went to my mid-term. Again! No one, for a whole hour.

I’m baffled. I mean, I set my watch by calling Time on the phone, and she has told me many times before that my watch is correct to the second. It’s highly unlikely that, at the same time, all of my clocks could begin running fast by an hour.

It’s not that I really mind being “ahead of the game.” In fact, after regularly showing up slightly late, it’s been nice to show up enormously early. Having more than enough time to take care of my basics — get a drink of water, mindlessly shuffle papers — and without any people (or girls) to watch (or ogle), I can just sit, often alone in a empty room, waiting.

It’s been meditative. It’s like my early-ness is one big Present. Since I’ve had so much time, waiting for class to start, lounging around until friends arrive, pacing empty meeting rooms and sitting outside until the bagel delivery guy shows up, I’ve been able to indulge my curiosities. Mostly this has involved wondering,”why am I so frickin’ early to everything? “

I’ve had the time to ask the people who show up late what’s going on, but I don’t really trust their responses. They usually tell a strange and similar story, which goes something like, “Once upon a time, we were all farmers, and we liked to add an hour every fall. Today, we still pretend to be farmers, ergo we still add an hour.”

As far as I’m concerned this is a pretty weak rationalization for being late. But it remains the only one. And the crazies who advocate it seem to be becoming more numerous and persistent.

They even try to peer-pressure me into agreeing, using familiar tactics ranging from the Appeal to False Memory (“You loon, don’t remember that we do this every year!”) to the Good Joke Strategy (“You’re a weird guy, Peter.”).

But I resist, because I have some grave questions for them.

(1) First of all, to make everyone change his or her watch at the same time would be a huge and costly endeavor. It obviously would never work.

(2) Second of all, no one can tell me exactly why these ancestral farmers wanted to change the time at all. Do hoes not work unless you add an hour in October? Do the farmers just want an excuse to sleep in one Sunday? Are we supposed to believe they’re trying to squeeze an extra hour’s worth of energy from the Sun? I don’t think so!

Maybe these people would say the farmers were just trying to show nature who’s boss, by forcing “human time” onto “natural time,” and redefining, for example, what comprises “the end of the day?” Posh. That would be irrational.

Further, even if there were a rational explanation for time warping, no one can tell me why we would preserve such a moldy tradition, seeing as how we’re no longer farmers.

(3) Even if there were a rational explanation for regular time warps, how would these time warps occur?

If the Sun actually slows down, is it because the horses of Apollo’s Sun Chariot are on a one-hour vacation? If this is the case, when the sun sets earlier rather than later, is it because Apollo is trying to make up for lost time?

If so, why aren’t we outraged?

If the explanation is deeper than this, and has to do with the Universe, then is it possible for everything (the whole Universe) to cease expanding? If this happens, wouldn’t it stop everything, including us, thereby negating the theory? Also, how would be explain the Universe stopping for an “hour,” a distinctly human unit of measurement based on our heart-rate and the Sumerian affection for the number six?

If it is possible for the Universe to stall, excepting human activity, then why aren’t there scientists figuring out how to harness this capacity? It’s not because there would be no profit in it. When the person who figures out Eternal Youth sells their stock options, they undoubtedly be an infinity-aire like Bill Gates. So maybe the scientists aren’t looking because it is physically impossible to warp time.

(Speaking of which, didn’t Superman do an interesting experiment in this field in the 1970s?)

Clearly, those who advocate “time morphing” have some serious questions to settle before I’ll join them. I’ll believe it when I see it.

(And the only time warp I’ve seen is a negative one, and that was during the midterm I just took, if you know what I mean!)

In the meantime, I’ll continue standing for rationality by showing up on-time to all my engagements.

Peter Stair was a junior majoring in human ecology. He believes that he will still be a junior majoring in human ecology by the time you read this column, though he reminds you that, currently, the Peter of the Past is talking to the You of the present. Peter hopes to continue time traveling into the future, one second at a time, and claims to know the score of any game before it starts. When others say that the only way to be alive today is to be here now, he nods. Please email him at pstair@stanford.edu if you think you understand what he is or has been talking about.