Why does Michigan have Daylight Savings Time?
358939
Daylight Saving Time is there to try to make more efficient use of daylight hours and therefore use less electricity and other resources.\n\nDuring the summer months, there are several hours of daylight before most people are awake.  By moving the clocks forward, everyone in effect gets up one hour earlier and so uses some of that daylight.\n\nThe important bit to remember is that moving the clocks does not actually move time, it just means that we get up earlier and pretend that we haven't.  If you wake up at 6 normally, then moving the clocks forward by an hour means that you actually get up at 5 but your clock tells you that it is 6.  We could all save a lot of hassle twice a year by just leaving the clocks where they are stop pretending that we are still getting up at the same time.\n\nThe attached link has loads of information about it, but it does suffer from the delusion that moving the clocks actually moves time.\n\nQuote "We change our clocks during the summer months to move an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening".  Clearly total nonesense.  All it does is mean that we can do something an hour earlier than before but pretend that it is the same time.
901372
In Australia only some states still have daylight savings. Queensland got rid of it for a number of reasons. One being that the farmers complained it was upsetting the cows timetable.
1092478
There is no use apart from being in time with the rest of the world.\n\nIn some parts it is not wise to put the clocks forward/backwards as this will change what time it is at the hottest in a day.\n\nChina is one of the few counties that does do this.
370787
Farming was not the issue when we began using daylight savings time (an idea originally proposed by Benjamin Franklin) small farmers always worked from daylight to dark anyway. Not by a clock. It is urban areas with 9 to 5 workers that benefit from daylight savings time.
213694
Daylight saving time or daylight savings time (DST) is a widely used system of adjusting the official local time forward, usually one hour from its official standard time for the duration of the spring and summer months. This is intended to provide a better match between the hours of daylight and the active hours of work and school. The "savings" are spent on evening activities which get more daylight, rather than being "wasted" while people sleep past dawn.\n\nDST is most commonly used in temperate regions, due to the considerable variation in the amount of daylight versus darkness across the seasons in those regions.\n\nGovernments often tout it as an energy conservation measure, on the grounds that it allows more effecive use of natural sunlight resource in summer time. (People go to bed and wake up earlier, which reduces use of electric lights.) Some opponents reject this argument (see below, Criticism).\n\nEuropeans commonly refer to the system as summer time: Irish Summer Time, British Summer Time, and European Summer Time. This is reflected in the time zones names as well, e.g. Central European Time (CET) becomes Central European Summer Time (CEST).\n\nNote that the term commonly used in the United States, daylight savings time, has been criticized by some commentators as being incorrect, for both historic (the name as provided by the act which inaugurated it in the United States is daylight saving time) and grammatical reasons.
480630
Arizona and Hawaii!\n\n"Arizona (except some Indian Reservations), Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa have chosen not to observe Daylight Saving Time. This choice does make sense for the areas closer to the equator because the days are more consistent in length throughout the year."
1218
nothing to do with daylight savings. Daylight savings is a human invention, not a natural phenomenon.\n\n...because leap seconds are not being added to compensate for the Earth's rotation slowing down.\n\nThe amount of time it takes for the earth to revolve around the sun is 365.2425 days.\n\nEven that is an approximation, the decimal digits can keep going on.\n\nSo initially, the calendar was divided evenly in 365 days. But about every 4 years, you'd be off 1 day. A century later, you've drifted off by a whole month!\n\nSo, leap years came into effect. Febuary has another day every 4 years. \n\nBut now you've approximated a year to 365.25 days, when in reality, its 365.2425 days.\n\nEvery century, you'll be off 1 day.\n\nSo that's where the next rule comes into play: "If the year is divisible by 4, but not by 100, its a leap year."\n\nNow we've approximated it to 365.2425, but because its always going to be an approximation, our calendar days are always slipping. All because the earth doesn't take exactly 365 days to go around the sun.\n\nThis is why leap seconds are added, and not to account for the slowdown of the earth's rotation.\n\nAs to why days are divided in exactly 24 hours, I'm not sure. But I would think the time difference is WAY less than 20 minutes, or we'd notice that soon enough, its dark at noon! :)  Time was divided a long time ago, and a simple system was sought for keeping track of it, so the minuts/hour/year thing is a nice division thats easy to do math with. The lost time, if its accounted for by leap years and such, could be easier to manage.\n\nFirst, I never said the earth is not slowing down. I said its not why leap seconds exist. And ok, I can entertain my explanation may be wrong, but that's no reason for your condescending tone, Jolly Roger. But look, your link brings me to a christian science evanglism site, where is the evidence that my answer is incorrect? \n\nYou haven't bothered to explain his original question. If leapseconds account for the slowdown of the earth's rotation, why are there leap seconds and not leap milliseconds?\n\nIf you want to append to your answer, at least try to do so while respecting the other users on this site, and not insult their intelligence.\n\nThis has piqued my curiosity, if there's anyone out there that has a source that says my explanation is incorrect, I mean an actual science website, you know, one that steers clear of religion, please let me know.
207628
We put the clocks forward by 1hr on Sunday 26th March 2006 and then put them back by an hour on the 29th October. It is basically to get more hours of daylight at decent times of the day!\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Summer_Time
418252
There is a very common myth that it has something to do with farmers, but it is actually and energy conservation measure.  The whole idea was originally a big joke made by Benjamin Franklin.  Not all States in the Union do DST, nor do all Counties in every State.\n\nInterestingly enough, in these days of ubiquitous air conditioning, there may be no cost savings in lighting as was originally intended.\n\nThe reality is that the "Spring Forward" portion of DST causes additional traffic fatalities.  It is a dangerous practice that is continued thanks to governmental inertia and constituent apathy.
324891
No one really sets the dates. Daylight Saving Time begins for most of the United States at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of April. Time reverts to standard time at 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday of October. In the U.S., each time zone switches at a different time.\n This is intended to provide a better match between the hours of daylight and the active hours of work and school. The "saved" daylight is spent on evening activities which get more daylight, rather than being "wasted" while people sleep past dawn.
675137
Four hours after you left (assuming you spent no time at your destination), and yet you were travelling back toward home at 2am Sunday morning in the spring when the country goes on "daylight savings time."\n\nIf that's the wrong answer, your informatio for answering the question was incomplete.
293133
It's called "Daylight Saving Time". It is believed to save electricity by prolonging the day with one hour.
745473
we do it because it saves energy.\nit causes it to be daylight longer, when we're not sleeping.\nin fact, back in the late 70s, when there was an oil shortage, they made daylight savings time go all year.\nit's not for farmers.\nthey're smart enough to work when it's light.\nit's for the rest of us, who don't seem to be.
429409
Daylight savings doesn't save daylight . . . it tries to better align the office owrker schedule with the rising and setting of the sun. \n\nIn spring the sun rises earlier, so we set our clock forward (add an hour or so) . . . this makes it seem like the sun rises later (if the sun was rising at 6AM now it rises at 7AM) and more importantly makes it seem to set later (if it was setting at 6PM now it sets at 7PM).\n\nSo what? Right? The point of this is that you don't need to turn on your lights at 6PM when the sun goes down. Now you turn them on at 7PM. So that hour of daylight at 6PM when you were sleeping was being "wasted" before, and now, it's being utilized so you don't have to turn your lights on so early in the evening. Daylight savings time saves tens of millions in electrivity in the USA alone each year. In the fall we do the opposite (set the clock back an hour) for the  opposite reason as sunrise gets later and later. This way we don't have to turn on the lights as early in the morning when we get up.\n\nOriginally it was so that farmers that wake up with the sun and office workers that always wake up at the same time could align their schedules as the sunrise changed between winter and summer.
429931
The answer is all geography, baby. Most countries instilled DST in order to give the illusion of an extra hour of daylight for farmers. Also taken into consideration is the normal business hours in a country's work day. Since each country has a different professional culture, each country has different DST standards to meet the needs of the average worker. A handful of countries go back in order to give people more light earlier in the morning and another handful of nations don't even have a DST standard. Just kidding, I made all this up. It's most likely true though so I'll let you stroke my hair if you want. (Just for you) Look! A link!!! >>>>>>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time
43184
Daylight Saving Time (or Summer Time as it is called in many countries) is a way of getting more out of the summer days by advancing the clocks by one hour during the summer. Then, the sun will appear to rise one hour later in the morning when people are usually asleep anyway, at the benefit of one hour longer evenings when awake: The sunset and sunrise are one hour later than during normal time. \n\nDST could save energy (less artificial light is needed during the evening) and make the country more efficient in addition to the pleasing effect of lighter evenings. \n\nTo make DST work, the clocks have to be adjusted one hour ahead when DST begins (during spring), and adjusted back one hour to standard time every autumn. There are many countries observing DST, and many who do not. \n\nBenjamin Franklin suggested the method in 1784, but it was first during World War I, in 1916 in several counties in Europe that DST was adopted, although it was proposed several times before, but rejected.
1178290
Pacific Daylight Time.