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Frank,

I know what you are saying is correct, but it is deliberately misleading, in my opinion.

Fred

On Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 11:31 PM, Frank Reed  wrote:
> Fred, you wrote:
> "I believe you're exaggerating with statistics comparing the suns' position at 
> noon EDT to noon time in Philadelphia, PA."
> 
> Where's the exaggeration? It's a simple fact: for 65% of the year, states 
from Maine to Indiana keep time that would correspond to mean solar time at 
60 degrees longitude (the fraction of the year was 57.5% before 2007). On any 
of those 238 days out of the year, when a clock in Pennsylvania or Ohio or 
most of Michigan or Indiana reads 12:00 noon, the Sun is over the 60 degree 
meridian of longitude well out into the Atlantic (actually due to the 
equation of time for the period in question, it varies from about 58.5 to 
about 64.0 degrees longitude).
> 
> Consider Columbus, Georgia. Most people think of Georgia as an eastern state 
because it's on the Atlantic coast. But as originally drawn, most of Georgia 
should be in the Central Time Zone. Instead it's all in the Eastern Time 
Zone. At 85 degrees west longitude, Columbus, GA is ten degrees of longitude 
or forty minutes in time away from the normal center-line of the Eastern time 
zone. Since it's on EDT (equivalent to AST) for 65% of the year, the Sun does 
not reach the meridian in Columbus, GA until 1:40 in the afternoon, on 
average. Clocks are "disconnected" from Sun time by 1h 40m (ranging from 1h 
35m to 1h 45m during the spring and summer but decreasing to 1h 24m around 
November 1, and then of course for the four months when DST is not used it 
ranges from 24m to 39m). When the clocks in Columbus read 12:00, it is never 
local apparent noon on any day of the year.
> 
> You added:
> 
> 
> "The proper comparison is noon EST, which goes to 75W, within a few miles of Philadelphia, PA."
> 
> That's the proper comparison for less than 35% of the year as the rules 
stand today. For MOST of the year (238 days), the eastern states and eastern 
midwest states of the USA keep Atlantic Standard Time. We LABEL it Eastern 
Daylight Time for various reasons, but that changes nothing: EDT=AST.
> 
> -FER
> 
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