Hi Rives and others. The time kept in the three "towns" you mention is half way between the times in Western Australia (WA) and South Australia (SA) only when South Australia is NOT observing daylight-saving time. When it is, these towns are 1&3/4 hours behind SA, but only 3/4 of an hour (less than half as much) ahead of WA. This on-the-quarter hour offset must make it a pain in the neck working out from local time what the times in WA and SA are (not to mention the rest of the world, except Nepal and the Chatham Islands), and it would seem to me much more sensible and convenient if their clocks were kept a whole hour ahead of WA (making them 9 hours ahead of UTC and 21 hours ahead of the date line, the same as Japan and eastern Indonesia). If they did that, they would be 1&1/2 hours behind SA during its daylight-saving period (only a half-as-much again greater offset than from WA) and 1/2 an hour behind for the rest of the year. This would also make time-conversion arithmetic much easier for almost everywhere on earth. Sorry; I've strayed into suggestion/prescription (as opposed to description) again. Rives: I'd love to know how I can get in touch with the sheriff of Madura, so I can put my suggestion to him/her. (Am I right that Nepal and the Chatham Islands are the only other surviving quarter-hour-offset zones in the world? The Chatham Islands in particular are a basket case, having simply added half an hour to their time along with the rest of New Zealand in 1947, thus breaking their connection with mean solar time anyway, and then adopting daylight saving as well! They "should" either go forward 1/4 of an hour or back 3/4 of an hour.) :Alex -------------------------------------------------------------- Alex Livingston Macintosh & Lotus Notes Support, Information Technology Australian Graduate School of Management UNSW SYDNEY NSW 2052 Australia Tel: +61 2 9931-9264 Fax: +61 2 9931-9349 Email: alex@agsm.edu.au Web: http://www.agsm.edu.au The Australian Graduate School of Management is a School of both The University of Sydney & The University of New South Wales. CRICOS Provider Number: 00098G Rives McDow <rmcdow@entel To: elsie <tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov> es.com> cc: Subject: dislocated time/space regions 2002-04-10 01:44 The most interesting region I have found consists of three towns on the southern coast of Australia, population 10 at last report, along with 50,000 sheep, about 100 kilometers long and 40 kilometers into the continent. The primary town is Madura, with the other towns being Mundrabilla and Eucla. According to the sheriff of Madura, the residents got tired of having to change the time so often, as they are located in a strip overlapping the border of South Australia and Western Australia. South Australia observes daylight saving time; Western Australia does not. The two states are one and a half hours apart. The residents decided to forget about this nonsense of changing the clock so much and set the local time 20 hours and 45 minutes from the international date line, or right in the middle of the time of South Australia and Western Australia. As it only affects about 10 people and tourists staying at the Madura Motel, it has never really made as big an impact as Broken Hill. However, as tourist visiting there or anyone calling the local sheriff will attest, they do keep time in this way. There are quite a few of these types of regions in the world; I'll try and post them as I get the time. Rives McDow
From: "Alex Livingston" <alex@agsm.edu.au> Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 12:13:00 +1000
The time kept in the three "towns" you mention is half way between the times in Western Australia (WA) and South Australia (SA) only when South Australia is NOT observing daylight-saving time. When it is, these towns are 1&3/4 hours behind SA, but only 3/4 of an hour (less than half as much) ahead of WA.
Yes. This is confirmed by the section entitled "What's the deal with time zones???" in <http://www.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/~awatkins/null.html>, which says a few other things: * Border Village, SA also is 45 minutes ahead of Perth. * The locals call this time zone "central W.A. Time" (presumably "CWAT"). * The locals also call Western Australia time "Perth time". It's not clear from context whether everyone in Western Australia knows of this naming convention, or whether it's just the people in this subregion. I found some independent confirmation of the extra zone on Page 6 of <http://www.epta.com.au/Nullarbor.pdf>, and in the Day 13 entry of <http://www.lifecycle2000.org/news18-04-00.html>. The earliest note that I found about the situation was <http://www.crossing-down-under.de/c/crossing/uk/diary/03-14.html>, dated 1999-03-14, so the practice has been going on at least since then.
it would seem to me much more sensible and convenient if their clocks were kept a whole hour ahead of WA
Most likely these locations rely on self-generated power, so it's possible that this tradition arose from the fact that traditional electric clocks (which are synced to the local generators) tend to wander, so people are more aware of the fact that local time is somewhat arbitrary. I've heard of similar effects in Antarctica. "One Year By Bicycle" notes the following in its 2001-09-22 entry: Balladonia to roadside rest area Digital clock at the motel gained 15 minutes overnight. Generators for the roadhouse must have difficulty maintaining 50 Hz. I also set my watch ahead, but by 45 minutes. East of Caiguna is a time zone offset from rest of WA by 45 minutes. I believe that when parts of Australia change to summer time in a few weeks, there will be six different times on the continent since WA, NT and Qld do not have summer time. (Relative to WA - Western Australia: 0:00, Eucla: 0:45, Northern Territory: 1:30, Queensland: 2:00, South Australia: 2:30, Victoria/NSW/Tasmania: 3:00). Seems confusing to me. <http://www.mvermeulen.com/oneyear/Journal/september21.htm> This story is echoed by Vermeulen's fellow bicyclists in <http://www.mitmania.net.au/~cycleoz/diary/diaryleg6.htm>, in its 2001-09-22 entry.
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Alex Livingston -
Paul Eggert