Daylight Saving Time (DST)

                   Daylight Saving Time: Aproposal to create more hours of day light by altering clocks.

              English-born New Zealand entomologist and astronomer George Vernon Hudson (1867-1946) began collecting insects at the age of nine. In Wellington, New Zealand, he found employment as a shift worker, which left him just enough day light hours to contiinue buiding his insect collection. There was, however, only one problem: in Hudson's opinion there were not quite enough day light hours available for the proper and measured pursuit of his beloved insects. Something had to be done, so in October 1895 he presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society suggesting that it might be prudent to consider a seasonal adjustment in time. 

 

                Hudson proposed changing clocks at the equinox, two hours forward in October and two hours back in March. Although his idea had already been anticipated by the U.S. inventor Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), who proposed his concept in his essay "An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light" (1784), Franklin's paper was really more a looght hearted satire than any concrete proposal, and it is generally thought that Hudson's idea presented the first real attempt to make Daylight Saving Time a reality. Huson's paper, unfortunately was greeted with disdain "Wholly unscientific and impractical" said some "completely out of the question" said other "to be considering altering a system that had been working perfectly.

                  DST was eventually adapted in Germany during World War Ⅰ (1914-1918) to save fuel expended in the powering of artificial lighting. It is now use in more than seventy countries throughout the world.