Well, spring is approaching.

 Well, spring is approaching.

And it awaits us again, the time will change by an hour. Every year there is a large amount of discussion on the Internet about the issue of seasonal time changes.
The sun is the source for most life on earth. The most important moment of the day is dawn. All of nature is awakening to a new daily cycle in anticipation of an influx of new energy. This synchronizes the so-called biological clocks of all organisms dependent on solar energy. The moment of dawn depends on the rotation of the planet Earth, the inclination of its axis of rotation, the position of the planet in its elliptical path around the Sun during the year, and also the position of the observer on the surface of the earth (i.e. latitude and longitude).

Since ancient times, people have created society in order to cooperate with each other and make reasonable use of the surrounding natural resources. Therefore, they gradually introduced rules such as the calendar, clocks, time zones, leap years, leap seconds and other corrections of various irregularities in the movement of the earth as it was or is needed. All these agreed upon rules serve to harmonize social endeavor with the immediate state of nature.

Throughout history, but also locally, these rules have been adapted many times to the needs of society. The creation of larger economic entities such as the European Union, in order to improve cooperation in Europe, also requires adapting common rules. These rules are decided by the political representation in the EU Parliament.

One of these rules is also the seasonal time changes known as "summer and winter time", when the clocks are moved forward one hour during the summer time. The problem is that the current procedure (over a hundred years old) makes the change in increments of 1 full hour. And this causes unpleasant reactions in many people.

Nevertheless, in the time of "summer time", many people welcome the fact that after a full-day work marathon, they have an extra hour of sunshine in the afternoon, which they can devote to their children, to active rest, or to other personal hobbies. It is a shame to waste this time, for a person it can mean more than 200 hours of sunny life in addition and it is worth it.

But the time on a watch is just a convention between people, for reasonable practical use in life. Around the vernal equinox in our mid-latitudes, the sun rises about 2 minutes earlier each day (1 minute further south, 3 minutes further north).

If our political representation in the EU Parliament were to enact a new time scheme for changing daylight saving time so that at 2 in the morning, for 30 days, the time would be moved forward by just 2 minutes (instead of 1 hour), then the sunrise would be around the same time. A gradual change over time will not cause any health problems for anyone. There will be no traffic problems either (changing the speed of the night train by 10% will catch up with a small delay within a few kilometers without adjusting the timetables).

This transition can be determined, for example, in spring from March 1 to March 30 by 2 minutes forward and in autumn from October 1 to October 30 by 2 minutes back.

Today, all mobile phones and computers connected to the Internet have the function of automatic time update and thus, they move the time themselves according to the established scheme even with a seasonal time change (whether it is 1 hour or if it is 30 times only by 2 minutes). The respective manufacturers of chronometers (watch machines) after the announcement of new time change schemes are certainly able to design and market electric and mechanical chronometers with automatic time change even without an Internet connection in a short period of time. Sometimes all you need to do with existing chronometers is to upgrade the SW. Of course, during the transition period, the media with regular time announcements will alert the time shift of 2 minutes per day for users of older chronometers without this automatic function.

What to say in conclusion? The majority of the population barely notices the small time change of 2 minutes per day. People's health problems will disappear completely. Timetables do not need to be changed. In the summer we will have more sun for ourselves and the children.

Technically, today the company is fully prepared. It is enough to enact a new scheme of seasonal time changes in the EU Parliament, gradually by just 2 minutes a day.

I am asking those who think this idea is interesting to help me spread it further so that it reaches those who can decide on it in the future. Thank you.

Author: Josef Petera, Poděbrady, CZ 18/3/2024