When Will Daylight Saving Time End in 2013?
Daylight saving time (
DST)—also
summer time in
British English— is the practice of advancing
clocks during the lighter months so that evenings have more
daylight
and mornings have less. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour
near the start of spring and are adjusted backward in autumn.
[1]
The modern idea of daylight saving was first proposed in 1895 by
George Vernon Hudson [2] and it was first implemented by
Germany and
Austria-Hungary starting on 30 April 1916. Many
countries have used it at various times since then. Much of the United States used DST in the 1950s and 1960s, and DST use expanded following the
1970s energy crisis. It has been widely used in North America and Europe since then.
The practice has been both praised and criticized.
[1] Adding daylight to evenings benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after
working hours,
[3]
but can cause problems for evening entertainment and other occupations
tied to the sun (such as farming) or to darkness (such as firework
shows).
[4][5] Although an early goal of DST was to reduce evening use of
incandescent lighting (formerly a primary use of electricity
[6]),
modern heating and cooling usage patterns differ greatly, and research
about how DST currently affects energy use is limited or contradictory.
[7]
DST clock shifts present other challenges. They complicate
timekeeping, and can disrupt meetings, travel, billing, record keeping,
medical devices, heavy equipment,
[8] and sleep patterns.
[9]
Software can often adjust computer clocks automatically, but this can
be limited and error-prone, particularly when DST dates are changed.
[10]
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