Why do we have Daylight Saving Time?

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That's brainson.org/events. Can't wait to see you. Come on, Atlanta. Imagine you had a superpower. You can control time.

“You could speed up the day or slow it down at will.”

Maybe you decide to move time, backward an hour in the mornings, so you can squeeze in a few more dreams before school. Or you jump an hour forward, just give it over, don't just put it in.

You'd be pretty powerful, and it's kind of what we do with our clocks twice a year.

You know, fall back and spring forward. Those are the time when we jump ahead, or backward by one hour, or at least the clock jumped through time, even if we don't. Today, we're going to talk about why we do that. And why it might be tough on our bodies.

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Good, a smartypass.org to sign up. Remember, good things exist when good people support them. So help us keep the lights on and help Gangadore get back to what he loves. You're listening to Brain's On from the Brain's On Universe. I'm your host, Molly Blund.

And my co-host today is Eva from Minneapolis. Hi, Eva. Hey, Molly. So we're gathered here today to answer this question. Hi.

My name is Eusem. I'm KitchenAid.

“And my question is, why do we have the ice-faving sign?”

So daylight saving time is part of the year here in North America when we move the clocks forward and now it also happens in lots of other places like Europe, Egypt, and parts of Australia. In fact, it's happening soon. Eva, I'm just wondering, does this change trip you up every year?

I'm not really. I kind of like having longer and shorter days. Yeah, you're like, oh, this is like a fun and adventure. Yeah, definitely. So in Minnesota, where we are, would you say you get stark pretty early in the winter?

Yeah, I did so. Definitely. Yeah.

It's always a bummer when it's like 430, and I'm like, this sun is down.

Yeah, that part's not so great. So what do you prefer getting up early and getting them morning light or staying up with? I like both, but if I'd have to choose, I would say staying up late. Yeah, you're a night owl.

Yeah. So if you could choose to jump forward one hour every year, what hour would you like to skip over? I would skip four to five because that's my bus ride and it's really long and it gives

Oh, okay.

So it sounds like a really good one to skip.

Yeah. Good choice.

“So if you could go back one hour, repeat an hour, when would you use that power?”

I think I would go back an hour at 7 o'clock so I could have more sleep before going to school. Very smart. You're like, one more hour. Sleep, please.

By the way, you might have noticed. We're saying daylight saving and not daylight savings. There's no S. Kind of tricky. I learned that when we started making this episode. But to Uzam's question, why do we have daylight saving time?

You think based on the name, the idea is to say daylight, but you can't actually say daylight.

Like put it in a jar and keep it for later, or store it in the sunbank?

Yeah, that's not going to work. No, you get a certain amount of sunlight each day, no matter what. We're not in control of that. But we aren't control of our clocks and our routines, like when we wake up. When we start and end work or school, and when we go to bed.

Good night, Eva. Night, Dad. All would be well and good for our schedules if the sun rose and set at the same time every day. Yeah, but it doesn't work that way.

No, sir, it does not. Here in North America, there is more daylight in the summer and less light in the winter. We moved the clocks forward in the spring, so there is more light in evenings, which also means there is less light in the mornings.

“But why are the days so much shorter in the winter anyway?”

Molly, Eva, I'm a time traveler from the present here to help answer your question.

Hey, Sandin, why are you wearing that shiny outfit covered in bubble wrap? Yeah, I'm a time traveler from the present. Wait, if you were from the present, doesn't that mean you're from right now? How is that time traveling? And it still doesn't explain the outfit.

Are those swim flipers on your feet? Okay, okay, I haven't traveled in time yet, but I plan to very soon. On daylight saving day, I, Sandin, time traveling, cotton will boldly go one hour into the future. I'm wearing this bubble wrap and tinfoil cardigan with the flipper shoes, because my

trend forecasts say this is how people will be dressing in the future. You mean one hour into the future? Precisely. Molly, it's going to be like a whole new world and I need to blend in. Now, I've been studying this miraculous time jump for weeks, so I can help explain anything

about it. Actually, we were just wondering, we changed the clocks and late winter to get more light in the evening. But why is there so much less daylight in the winter anyway? Great question.

It actually has to do with how our planet tilts. Think of it this way. Imagine our planet is a golf ball. And imagine that golf ball is going in circles around a giant light bulb. That's the sun.

Okay. I am imagining it, a golf ball circling a big light. Great, great. Okay, now, not only is the golf ball making a big circle around that light. Imagine that it's also spinning around and around kind of like how a top spins.

So it's making little torils while it makes one big circle around the light. I'm getting dizzy thinking about it, but okay. Okay, so each time that ball spins around one time like a top, that's one day. Each time it goes all the way around that big light, that's a year. Makes sense.

Now, if that ball was facing the light straight on, the amount of daylight would be the same all year. Our earth is not facing the sun straight on. It's tilted a little. So imagine you took that golf ball and you tilted it a little bit.

So the top half was more in the light than the lower half. Okay, that top half would be seeing a lot more sun than right? Exactly.

“That's what it's like for us in the northern part of the globe when it's summer.”

We're on the top half of that golf ball. And we're tilting more towards the sunlight and our days are long. And I'm guessing the bottom half of the golf ball, the part tilting away from the sun. That's winter. 100% spot on when it's summer in the northern half of the planet, it's winter in the southern

half. But here's the thing. As the earth circles around the sun, it'll eventually get to the opposite side of that star. The tilts stays the same, but now the southern part is angled to the sun and the northern

half is angled away. Oh, so that's winter for us in the north. And summer in the south. Correct. And if you live right along the middle of the planet, like the belt we call the equator,

the length of the day doesn't change all that much in the summer or the winter. But when you live really far north or really far south, you can get extremely short

So that's why we have short days in the winter. Because right now, our half of the globe is tilted away from the light. And so we aren't getting as much direct sunlight. Wow. Thanks for shining a light on that issue for us, Andy.

No problem. Now, I have to get ready for our leap forward in time. You should, too. Here. It's a serial full of riboflavin.

I've heard riboflavin helps your body adjust the time travel. Hmm. I can really take the riboflavin. Enjoy. Now, I'll see you, too, in the future.

No matter what the clock says, I always know when it's time for the...

Ava, are you ready for the mystery sound? Yes, I'm ready. Okay, here it is. What do you think?

“I think that that's maybe like a fork or a knife hitting a bowl with some water in it,”

maybe something cleaning it in the sink, but yeah, I think maybe like a fork, like hitting a glass bowl and then also there's some water in it. Okay, so we're hearing, are you tensile? We're hearing? Yes.

Oh, it's good. We're hearing a bowl. Do I hear it again? Yes. Okay, here it is.

Thank you. I need a thoughts. Not really, maybe like two utensils clinking against each other, but honestly, I think I have the same thought. Yeah.

That sounds very convincing to me, first thing about my mind was like a spoon and a cup.

Yeah. That's what was in my head. So, I think you and I are doing a great job. Yeah.

“All right, so we're going to hear it again, get another chance to guess and hear the answer”

at the end of the show. Stick around. We've got an episode coming up about baseball. It's a fun sport with lots of fun chance. Like, we need a bit or not a valiant chair.

Nice. But, you know what, doesn't have great chance? Science. It's sure, couldn't use some. So, make up a fun game day chant for science and share it with us, Ava.

Can you think of a fun chair or chant for science? Yeah, so I've my dad or wanted it. Okay, excellent. Thanks, Dad. Good morning.

Okay. Give me a why. Why? Give me a why. Give me a why.

Why? If you're so curious, ask a scientist. Bravo. I love that one.

“And also encourages our emotions to make a why, wouldn't you say?”

Yeah. I can see a whole stadium doing that. I am into an excellent work, Dad. So, record your cheer or chant and send it to us at brainson.org/contact. You can also send us drawings, jokes, mysteries, sounds, or questions.

Again, that's brainson.org/contact. Can't wait to hear from you. Today's episode is sponsored by Bombus. It's the time of the year. We think about, hmm, what if I got to do differently this year?

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That's BOMBAS.com/family26, code family26 at checkout. This is Brainson, I'm Molly. And I'm Eva, and we're talking about daylight saving. It's something a lot of you are curious about. Hi, my name is Catherine from Richmond Hill, Ontario.

And my question is, who invented daylight savings? And why do we have daylight savings? Hi, my name is Michael from Queens, New York. My question is, why do we have daylight savings in the USA?

But why do we start moving in clocks forward?

“Turns out, lots of people have suggested changing clocks to make up for shorter days.”

And back, an ancient Rome may just change the length of the hours to better fit the daylight. So an hour was longer in the summer and shorter in the winter. But moving in the clock forward by an hour didn't take hold until much later. During World War I. It was the early 1900s and there was a big battle across the globe.

Lots of countries were fighting to save energy for the war. Some places moved the clocks forward an hour. That way, there would be more daylight in the afternoon and evening.

The idea was that people would use less energy power in homes if they could just rely on daylight instead.

The war ended, but daylight saving caught on in the US and was made into law a few decades later in the 1960s. Now, we still switch the clocks forward every spring to get more light after school and work. These days, changing the clock doesn't even save much energy. But we still do it. There's a lot more to the history of this time change and we're going to cover it in an episode,

if we ever go later this year, but we want to know if you could do anything you wanted with an extra hour of daylight.

“What would you do, Eva? What would you do with an extra hour of daylight?”

Well, there's a lot of things I want to do, but I think I would want to go over to my friend's house and plan our trampoline for an hour. Not really fun.

That sounds great. That's a perfect use of that hour.

So listen, or send us what you plan to do with your extra hour of evening light. Send it to us at brainson.org/contact. Thanks! Okay, time now for some quick clock facts. Kick-tuck-tuck-tuck-tuck.

You might have heard that one of the reasons we do daylight saving is to make things easier for farmers. But that's not true. Farmers actually were against the time change. They said it really only helps city workers. In fact, one saucy person wrote into a popular magazine to say, "The farmer objects to doing his early chores in the dark merely so that his city brother,

who is sound asleep at the time, may enjoy a daylight motor ride at eight in the evening." Kick-tuck-tuck-tuck-tuck. There are some places that don't do daylight saving. Yeah, like China and India. In the U.S., Hawaii and parts of Arizona don't observe the change either.

But the Navajo Nation in Arizona does. Kick-tuck-tuck-tuck-tuck. Daylight saving used to stop on the last Sunday of October, but candy makers helped get a change to November. That way, it would still be daylight saving time on Halloween.

More daylight equals more time for kids to rake in that sweet Halloween candy. It also means that kids would be safe around the streets since it would be lighter longer. Speaking of clocks, the mind says it's time to check the mail bag. We love getting letters, emails, and messages from you all. Okay, oh, here's one.

Someone made their own version of our theme song. Let's hear it. Hi, Ben's on. I am Elia from Greenboard New Jersey. And this is the best I could do of the "Boins of Theme Song." Oh, nice! On a keyboard and everything, nice work, Elia.

“If you want to play as a song or ask us for some advice,”

or if you have a joke to share, send it to us at brainson.org/contact. Hope to see your name when our next mail bag. Brainson is independent, meaning we only exist because people support us. You can get all our episodes without ads and keep us going by joining SmartyPass. Go to SmartyPass.org to sign up and make a difference. Thanks!

Welcome back, Eva and I are learning all about daylight saving. It doesn't actually save daylight, but moving the clocks forward makes it so that there's more daylight in the evenings. Can I say I utterly detest daylight saving with every single one of my precious neurons? Oh, hey, it's doing the brain. A literal brain that can talk. Yes, it's me. I'm a brain and I'm still absolutely wonderful.

But I am not looking forward to daylight saving time. Every year at messes me up.

I can never reset my car clock, so I just leave it wrong until we change time back.

True story. Sure, but for me, it's not the time on the clock. It's my circadian rhythm! It gets all actodoodle. Oh, circadian rhythm. That's like a person's internal clock that tells them when to wake up and when to go to sleep. And it's controlled by daylight. When you're I see the morning rays of sunshine, that internal clock is like, "What got buddy boy?

Time to rise and join the day away." Right. And when it gets dark, that internal clock tells your body to get tired and sleepy. So, you can rest. Yep, so when we jump an hour in the morning, my circadian clock is all like, "What? The bean, that's supposed to wake up, and now it's too early." Oh, and when it's evening, my clock is all like, "Yo, I'm ready to get cozy in my dammies. Why are we still eating dinner?"

I feel that too. Waking up the day after the jump is hard. Yeah, bro. Some sleep researchers say insomnia is more common after clock changes. Boo that! And some other scientists have found links between moving the clock and heart problems in older people. And more car accidents, too. That makes sense. We're not as sharp when we're groggy. Yeah, daylight saving is low key terrible for our health.

“That's why I'm boycotting it. Not changing my clock.”

Maybe only relative appointments, or really whatever I don't care. But scientists also say the effects of daylight saving only lasts a few days. And in the fall, you got a little extra sleep, which is nice. Also, what kind of appointments does a talking brain even have? It's important stuff. You know how gungotor of CEO brains on universe now.

Well, I'm gungotor's brain trust. Does that mean you advise gungotor on important business stuff? Nah. I mean, I'm a brainy trust.

So we just tell each other secrets that will never share with anyone.

Like how sand and is afraid of green apples, or how marks sometimes sneak south to be the backup catcher for the New Year's Metz. Top secret stuff. Well, good luck with everything. Thanks for stopping by, Duane. Later, brilkies! Daylight saving happens in the US when we move clocks forward an hour in the spring.

The goal is to get more sunlight in the evening hours, but it also means less light in the morning. It started as a way to save energy during World War I, but it became a normal part of life in certain places like the US. Moving the clocks can mess with our internal body clocks called our circadian rhythm. But the effects were off after a week or two. That's it for this episode of Brainson.

This episode was produced by Molly Blue, Mark Sandch, and Sand and Totten. It was sound design by Mark Sandch as who also wrote our theme music. Special thanks to Sam and Jen Rosenbaum, also Ava, a sister, and the rest of her family, and Ken Taborski at Code of the North for all of their website help. Okay. Ava, ready to go back to the mystery sound?

Yes. Alright, let's hear it.

“Yeah, I think like maybe a spoon scooping or like getting scooping like maybe water out of a bowl until like another bowl or like the sink maybe.”

I don't know, something else over and a bowl of water. Still are wearing a bowl of water. Yeah, that's what I feel. I'm just going to go on on a limb. I want to say spoon.

What do you think? Spoon knife. Spoon. We're going spoon. Okay. Spoon. I'm committing to spoon. Should we hear for a ride?

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Here is the answer. Hi, Boinson.

My name is Kelso. That was the sound of me mixing tea in a tea cup with a spoon. Spoon. Spoon. Yes.

Spoon. Spoon. Spoon. Spoon. Okay. We didn't quite get the tea cup part. But the tea cup had a tiny bowl.

It's a cup.

“It's a cup. And there's liquid in it. Good job, guys. Hi, Fives.”

Now it's time for the brains on our roll.

These are the incredible kids who keep the show going with their questions ideas.

Mystery sounds, drawings and high fives. Mingyu from Westminster New Jersey. Phoebe and Deacon from Austin, Texas. Henry from Westerville, Ohio. Eliana from Toronto, Annie from Providence.

Rhode Island, Ethan from Birmingham, Alabama. Mason from Australia. Howell from Fairbank, Alaska. Wesley from Lincoln, Shire, Illinois. Beckett from Davenport, Iowa.

Kai from Toronto. Abigail from Roseville, California. Collin from St. Louis. Aubrey and Noah from Grand Rapids. Michigan, Zandrrew from the Philippines.

Maggie from coming Georgia, Sally from Gainesville. Georgia, Freddie and Alice from Seattle. Melody from Wayne of is the Colorado. Hadley from Lenware City, Tennessee. Penny from New Jersey, Logan from Waterloo, Ontario.

Charlie Veda Parker, Finley and Calam from Parksville, British Columbia. Nora from Aldi Virginia, Matan from Chevy Chase, Maryland. Merlin and Mavis from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jaden from Sanford, Florida.

Matty from Massachusetts, Samuel and Abraham from Trula Vista, California.

“Henrik from North Carolina, Virgil from Los Angeles.”

Catherine from Belmont, Massachusetts. Jojo from Chicago, Harper and Hendrick from Ashcashwood, Sonson.

Sanvi from Prosper, Texas, Martha from Charlotte, North Carolina.

Enes from Camden, Maine. Yavani from Leonberg, Germany.

“Juniper and Genevi from Boomington, Indiana.”

Robin from Swan's Burrow, North Carolina.

Isha and Amrida from San Jose, Costa Rica. Alfie from Wakefield, United Kingdom. Emma from Basel, Switzerland. Owen and Solby from Warren, Minnesota. Keiren from Berkeley, California.

Hattie from Westminster, Colorado.

“Calder and Coralie from Solverspring, Maryland.”

Tate from Molina, Nebraska. Cameron from Selbyville, Delaware. Annabelle from Stansbury Park, Utah. Eight in from Cupertino, California. Grace from Lexington, South Carolina.

Elise from Delaware, California. Brody from Virginia. Alina and Clara from Burke, Virginia. Molly from Virginia. We'll be back next week with a mystery sound extravaganza.

Thanks for listening.