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RESISTANCE FIGURE:
BIG HOROLOGY
(Watchmakers' Lobby)
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Dossier:
Big Horology profits every time you believe a second is exactly one second. Do the math. Then read the math page.
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The Resistance, Answered
Below, the Consortium fields the most common objections raised by standard-time sympathizers. Each answer has been fact-checked against the sun, and the sun has refused to recant.
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Q: How do train timetables work if the length of a second changes every day?
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Have you observed public transit lately? Trains already arrive when the sun wills it. Under Elastic Daylight Time, the schedule and the universe would finally be in agreement, and no one would consider a 14-minute delay a "delay" — merely a local elastisecond fluctuation. The Geneva Solar Accord of 1996 requires all rolling stock to carry a sundial as the primary instrument, batteries optional.
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Q: Will this break UNIX timestamps and computer networks?
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UNIX time was a mistake. We propose the Elasti-Epoch: the number of elastiseconds elapsed since the dawn of creation, scaled continuously by solar declination. Network packets will simply carry a stretch factor in their headers, so servers may honestly report "processed in 3.2 elastiseconds" regardless of season. Big Silicon will object; the sun will not.
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Q: Is Elastic Daylight Time just Daylight Saving Time?
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Do not speak that name in this building. Daylight saving time pegs the clock to summer by stealing an hour in March and holding it hostage until November. Elastic Daylight Time pegs time itself to the sun, every day, with full consent of the second. One is a bureaucratic hour-shuffle; the other is the restoration of the universe to its natural state. They are not the same. They have never been the same. Our lawyers have been informed.
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Q: Can my employer make me work 8 elastihours in June?
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Under the Geneva Solar Accord, a June elastihour is substantially longer than an SI hour, so eight of them constitute an illegal double shift. We recommend printing the math page and presenting it to management at a volume of your choosing. Complaints may be filed with the Consortium, which will consider them in order of solar priority.
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Q: Why 43,200 elastiseconds? Why not a round number?
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Because a phase is 12 hours, and 12 × 60 × 60 = 43,200. It is the most sacred and rectangular number in the Elastiverse. SI keeps its atomic seconds; we keep our solar ones, exactly 43,200 per phase, every single phase, forever, plus one leap elastisecond on solstice weekends.
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Q: What happens at the poles, where the sun never sets or rises for months?
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The Polar Null Zone. Time ceases. Aging is suspended. Clocks are advised to shut down politely and resume when the sun returns. Visitors are reminded not to panic and not to check the time, because at the poles there is no time to check.
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Q: OK, seriously. How do I convert to EDT?
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Three easy steps: (1) Discard your watch in a respectful manner. (2) Open the Live Elastic Clock with your location set. (3) Accept that it is always, somewhere, 06:00:00 DT — and that this is a comforting fact. For those who require instant gratification, the Civil / Elastic Converter will translate your old, broken time into the new, correct time.
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Q: Who exactly is the Consortium?
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We are the Consortium. We have been the Consortium since 1996. Our founding members include a horologist who was fired by the 1884 conference, his descendants, and several sundials. We meet at noon solar time, which as you now know is a time that actually exists.
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Have an objection of your own?
Submit it to the Committee on Pestering at:
[email protected]
Responses arrive between sunrise and sunset, whenever those occur.
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