# Explain what's wrong with a 26-hour day, please? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 10, 2005, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425 "2005-08-10T11:15:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![chemistrydork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@chemistrydork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chemistrydork)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425/21 "2005-08-10T17:39:08Z")
The phrase nobody has mentionned yet is “circadian rhythms” – it’s your natural body clock, which is affected by the light/dark cycles in your day and also by the times you eat. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian\_rhythm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm) Messing with your cycle (by, for example, moving up to the Arctice Circle and having 24 hours of sunlight a day) will screw you up, slowly but surely. On a more personal note, my circadian rhythm is on the long end – given no external stimulus (nagging wife, usually), I tend to go to sleep one hour later than I did the day before. This makes me incredibly adept at adjusting to jet lag when I travel westward, and horrible at adjusting to jet lag when I travel eastward. I usually end up sleeping a little later each night until sleep deprivation catches up with me, and then I’m on a 24-hour cycle (but constantly sleep-deprived). What I would give to slow the Earth’s rotation by 1 hr! ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425/22 "2005-08-10T17:51:34Z")
> [@](#): > > If you advance your personal calenday by one “day” every time you completed 26 hours you would find that you had to skip a whole calendar day to be in sync with the local calendar on each westward circumnavigation. If you are happy to allow your personal calendar to drift by one day in twelve from the local one then no problems: nothing gained, of course! Sure the day we skip isn’t payday. That’d suck. > [@](#): > > So like Magellen, when you get back to your home “port”, you’re going to have to reset your calendar and skip the day that you already spent. And just to be a nitpicking bastard, Magellan didn’t make it back to home port. He was killed on Mactan in the Phillipines. ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425/23 "2005-08-10T18:01:18Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#): > > So like Magellen… …you will be killed on Mactan in the Phillipines. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425/24 "2005-08-10T18:17:15Z")
When I saw the title of the thread, I thought someone was proposing we slow down our clocks so that there would be 26 hours in a day instead of only 24. My reaction was “Why would you pick 26?” 😕 Along that line, someone has already mentioned that a day isn’t exactly 24 hours long. The earth is slowing down, so that a long time from now one side will always face the sun (as the moon faces the earth). Because of this fact, there will be a time when there will be 26 hours in a day…and then 40 hours and then…504 hours, etc. until a day will be forever. 😉 [sup] **but don’t hold your breath** [/sup] ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425/25 "2005-08-10T18:40:40Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > On a somewhat related note, when I was on break in college, I decided that I liked to sleep 10 to 11 hours a night, and I enjoyed being awake for 16 to 18 hours each day. So I attempted an experiment over a month in which I slept for 10 to 11 hours, then stayed active for 16 to 18 hours before retiring. Each “work day” for me was, in fact, 26 to 29 hours. > > It was fine for many days, but when I started rising at odd times – 7 pm, 1 am, and then trying to find something to do through the wee hours of the night in a small New England town, it got boring. After two or three weeks, it got very disorientating – like my body was telling me, pick a schedule for sleeping and rising that has some connection to the sun, damn you!! – and I dropped the whole thing. > > What I’m saying is, that even if you could magically add two hours to each day by constantly moving west, I’m quite confident that there’s a point at which your sleep patters would get disrupted to the point that you’d feel compelled to return to a normal 24 hour day. I can’t explain any science behind it, but it sure happened to me. The situation in the OP does stay with the sun, so I would imagine that it could work. You’d spend a fortune on plane tickets, but I do believe it would work. ---
**Author:** ![Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/58956e/32.png) [@Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoodoo_Ulove)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425/26 "2005-08-10T20:09:10Z")
> [@kniz](#): > > When I saw the title of the thread, I thought someone was proposing we slow down our clocks so that there would be 26 hours in a day instead of only 24. That would require speeding up the clocks, and adding a 13 (and a 25 for current 24 hour format). ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425/27 "2005-08-12T13:10:33Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > Very true. But (except for some issues at high latitudes) it’s always 24 hours from one “local noon” to the next. > > What are the inadequancies? I know I already replied to these questions (above) but I had another idea about this and decided to post it here as opposed to starting another thread about it. I’ll wager, although I haven’t done the map browsing to verify it, that there are places that are due north or due south of other places (thus sharing the older definitions of “noon” where the midday moment was defined by when the sun crossed “the meridian” at that spot) but which are in different time zones. I’m not sure of this, but I think I am, that Indianapolis, which is almost due north of Nashville, is at the moment on the same time as Nashville only because Indianapolis is on EST where Nashville is on CDT. Once Nashville reverts to CST it’s an hour earlier than Indianapolis. Do you know of similar anomalies engendered by time zone hiccups? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425/28 "2005-08-12T13:43:56Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > I guess the real question would be this- > > Currently most people cycle through a wake17/sleep7 (or close to it) day every 24 hours. At the end of a 30 day month they will have accumulated 510 waking hours and 210 sleeping hours. > Now if we wanted to achieve a 26 hour day we could cycle with a wake19/sleep7 day. At the end of the 30 days we would now get 526 waking hours and 194 sleeping hours. Apparently this gets fouled up however because your cycle will become out of wack with the sun rise/fall thing. > So, If we can defeat the problem of 24 hour sun rise/fall cycle by making it a 26 hour sun rise/fall cycle by doing exactly what the OP suggests (adding 2 extra hours of daylight by jumping west): > > Will our bodies adjust to the 26 hour sun rise/fall cycle along with the wake19/sleep7 cycle and can we really gain 16 more waking hours in our new 28 day month? I’m willing to believe that upsetting the frequency of our daily routine might have long-term consequences, but I find it hard to accept that it would make much difference to us if we just stayed awake a few hours less or more in total per month (or whatever). Our requirement for amount of sleep is not absolute anyway; it’s a bit adjustable for most people (a lot adjustable for others). ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425/29 "2005-08-12T14:37:23Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > I’ll wager, although I haven’t done the map browsing to verify it, that there are places that are due north or due south of other places (thus sharing the older definitions of “noon” where the midday moment was defined by when the sun crossed “the meridian” at that spot) but which are in different time zones. This is certainly true (as [this map](http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/world_tzones.html) shows). For it not to be, timezones would need to be exclusively defined by lines of longitude. That would be a highly logical system, but very unrealistic - in the real world, political boundaries are bound to introduce complications. But I don’t really see how this makes timezones “inadequate”. And it nonetheless remains true that if you stand in one spot and mark the time when the sun reaches its highest point, you’ll find it’s 24 hours to the next such event. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425/30 "2005-08-12T14:44:33Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > And it nonetheless remains true that if you stand in one spot and mark the time when the sun reaches its highest point, you’ll find it’s 24 hours to the next such event. You can find some factual infomation on this issue in [this Wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereal_day). ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425/31 "2005-08-12T16:16:56Z")
> [@Hoodoo Ulove](#): > > That would require speeding up the clocks, and adding a 13 (and a 25 for current 24 hour format). Your answer revealed something else that I wondered. Why not a 25 hour day. **Voila** when you mentioned adding a 13, I realized that adding a 12-1/2 was not possible, but we could go entirely to digital. 😛 [sup] **I did realize that an hour would have to be shortened.** [/sup] ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425/32 "2005-08-12T17:53:19Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > You can find some factual infomation on this issue in [this Wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereal_day). Right - since the earth is orbiting the sun, it’s a sidereal day of just under 24 hours. What are those timezone inadequancies? (They look rather adequate to me, if occasionally somewhat convoluted.) ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425/33 "2005-08-12T18:19:25Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > Right - since the earth is orbiting the sun, it’s a sidereal day of just under 24 hours. > What are those timezone inadequancies? (They look rather adequate to me, if occasionally somewhat convoluted.) For what they were created for, helping train schedules be less finicky by not having to take “local time” (based on when noon happened to arrive at that precise location) into account, they are reasonably adequate. But with jetliners able to travel westward faster that the earth’s rotation and thus arrive “before” they take off, I’d vote for that being an inadequacy. As I mentioned (above) in an earlier reply, people living near the edges of time zones and carrying on business and other affairs with those “across the border” in another zone, it’s more than a little inconvenient, which I can also regard as inadequate. The Indianapolis/Nashville anomaly is another example of how local governments stomp all over the “adequacy” issue. To spin this around, what convinces you that the time zones _are_ adequate? ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2005, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425/34 "2005-08-13T00:43:14Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > To spin this around, what convinces you that the time zones _are_ adequate? To begin with, they are obviously necessary. Humans are incurably diurnal, so there’s no real prospect of using the same clock all over the world. The old scheme of every town and village having its own clock had drawback too obvious to need mention. Timezones are the obvious compromise - keep one clock over a moderately broad area. Clearly, if you live on the edge of such an area some complications will ensue. But there’s no way around that. And in general, things work - it’s rather easy to be on time for work, or to catch a scheduled train or flight. Yet nearly all of us can retain the concept of it being dark at midnight and bright at noon. Literature referring to such things can be understood around the world. Seems adequate to me. If there’s a better scheme, I’ve yet to hear of it. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2005, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425/35 "2005-08-13T08:48:02Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > To begin with, they are obviously necessary. \ > > Seems adequate to me. If there’s a better scheme, I’ve yet to hear of it. Okay. Reasonable reply. I’ll reduce “inadequate” to “annoying to some.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-whats-wrong-with-a-26-hour-day-please/316425.md?page=1)