How the 25-hour day might work.

Here are some points I made about the 25-hour day system, clipped from another thread:

"A more extreme, but highly efficient, method to smooth the loads on roads, and at the same time make traffic highly predictable, is to introduce staggered work start times which extend throughout the day and night. Having the whole city operate 24 hours a day will ensure that all infrastructure is used to its fullest capacity, and will greatly increase the economy of the city, especially manufacturing industries and the like.

By having the whole population operate over 24 hours through the use of staggered start and finish times, delays due to store closures and the like will be virtually eliminated, and businesses can operate continually at their maximum pace.

In order to do this though, there will have to be many changes made, not least of which will be pschological. Office workers may be inclined to share their office space when they have finished their working hours. Much brighter lights which will attempt to approximate daylight conditions will be installed in all occupied spaces.

This system will not be enforced by the government, but at first large incentives to use this system will be used. Once enough businesses adopt this system, other businesses will follow in order to compete. Eventually, the system may be self-sustaining, and will no longer require government incentives.

Similarly, days off work need not be saturday and sunday. Instead, they will be similarly staggered. In order for workers to collaborate socially with friends, they will pre-calculate their days off to coincide with others. The 7-day week can also be eliminated, with days on and days off work organized by the employer in response to the workers desires and needs."

"As one can imagine, such a radical system will not be without problems. Traffic noise and the general hustle and bustle of city life will continue throughout the night, while half the population is still sleeping. Quieter modes of transport (electric vehicles etc.) will go some way to alleviate this problem, but it is likely noise insulation measures will have to be increased throughout the city, and in every dwelling. The latter will be a necessity as those in apartments may have neighbors on different sleep times. Also, those who have worked through the night will have to sleep through the day. Bedrooms will have to have the ability to be completely blacked-out from sunlight.

However, the economic advantage to such a scheme would be unprecedented, as most of the cities infrastructure, and businesses, will increase their operating efficiencies by huge amounts.

In addition, many smaller benefits will arise from using this system. Security will be increased as people continuously occupy all areas of the city. Shops will be open 24 hours for anyones convenience. Peak power demands will be eliminated. Nightlife may continue to exist, but will have to evolve. Most of the negative aspects of nightlife will be eliminated.

However, although such a system will have great economic benefits, the pschological cost might be high, and in the end, not worth it. More thought needs to be put into this."

"A big problem might be caused by the fact that people will not be able to enjoy the outdoors. Street lighting might be brighter, but the atmosphere will probably never be attractive. Many businesses will still depend upon the daylight.

Using a standard shift-based system will not work, as the psycholgical pressure of changing sleep patterns every few weeks will be too high. As I see it, a 25 or more hour day will have to be adopted instead. This would work well with the system of staggered start and finish times.

So that normal social and work dynamics are maintained, those sharing a place of work will be organized to be on the same start and finish time. If 25-hour days become the standard, collaboration with people in other businesses (who may be on different start and finish times) will be consistent and predictable.

With a 25-hour day system, many days off will not coincide with normal daylight hours, and the time off will have to be enjoyed at least partially during the night."

I made a model in excel to show me how often daylight might be experienced by an office worker using the 25-hour day system.

For the model, I made the assumption that there is always 14 hours of daylight, and consequently 10 hours of darkness. Also, the typical worker is assumed to wake at 6am, start work at 8am, leave work at 5pm, and go to sleep at 10pm.

In a working day, there are a few highly favorable times for daylight (remembering that light can be blocked out when it is unfavorable):

1. Sunlight is favorable when one is waking up and beginning the day, or between the hours of 6 and 7am.

2. It is also favorable between the hours of 5pm and 8pm.

3. While the worker is in a building, between 8am and 5pm, the artificial daylight is deemed sufficient, although real daylight is favorable at this time if it is available.

The Results: I found that there were 10 days with at least 1 hour of light in the morning and afternoon, 6 days with at least 1 hour in the morning only, and 8 days with at least 1 hour in the afternoon only. There were no days which did not have at least 1 hour in either morning or afternoon.

All of the 25-hour days had at least 6 hours of sunlight during wake hours.

Some more tidbits: The human biological clock will automatically fall into a 25-hour day cycle in the absence of normal stimulis, so there shouldn't be any problem adjusting to this system from a biological point of view...

Also, as the worker awakes at 6am, and goes to sleep at 10pm, he sleeps for 9 hours, not 8! Perhaps the extra hour can be better used awake? Perhaps he should go to sleep at 11pm instead?

Mike wrote:

I made a model in excel to show me how often daylight might be experienced by an office worker using the 25-hour day system.

For the model, I made the assumption that there is always 14 hours of daylight, and consequently 10 hours of darkness. Also, the typical worker is assumed to wake at 6am, start work at 8am, leave work at 5pm, and go to sleep at 10pm.

During the winter, it sometimes gets dowm to 9 hrs of daylight. Everywhere on earth it averages 12 over the year.

I added on 2 hours assuming 1 hour of twilight in the morning, and 1 hour in the afternoon. Not sure if this would be realistic though.

I would just add on 30 minutes, twilight is about 30 min in morning and night, so say half of it will be well lit.

Maybe make each "day" 10 hours. Work for a "day", sleep for a "Day" etc.

in the Decimal time thread, I propose another set of units. one is the tempus, which is 89.3591153 seconds. 1 kilotempus is equal to 24.8219765 hours. So the 25(24.82) hour day might be an interesting concept if this system is adopted.

Very interesting topic.

I agree this could reduce traffic congestion and add a great deal of efficiency to business. However, I honestly don't think it's practical.

This is a Clean-Slate Society, where we will hopefully abandon the practices that have caused problems in current societies. It is not, however, starting over necessarily. Abandoning cultural norms that societies share across the world for new ones that aren't necessary for a successful Clean-Slate Society is probably a mistake. Included in this would be the adjustment to natural day length.

Humans could adapt to a 25 hour day length, but the fluctuations in light levels that would occur over a week would be stressful and unhealthy in my opinion.

Decreasing traffic levels could more easily be remedied by several shifts that different industries or areas of the city would use. Seven to 3, 8 to 4, 9 to 5, 10 to 6, etc. This would also mean mass-transit systems are operating at maximum or near-max efficiency for longer periods of the day.

I like the idea of merely offsetting shifts. I think 6-2, 7-3, 8-4, 9-5, 10-6, and maybe 11-7. Maybe having different neighborhoods offset like time zones would be interesting, you know, it would add culture and the like.The times themselves, would of course stay the same for ease of accounting.

Could we all just forget shifts, just work flexibly so a 35 hour week work contract is a contract to work 35 hours collectively across a week, be it two 17.5 hour days or 5 seven hour nights. could be dificult for starbucks though.

Finally, someone else recognises that we shouldn't change everything.

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Could we all just forget shifts, just work flexibly so a 35 hour week work contract is a contract to work 35 hours collectively across a week, be it two 17.5 hour days or 5 seven hour nights. could be dificult for starbucks though.

As nice as that sounds, most people would still be working during traditional hours. Shifts just make sense, set schedules also increase productivity.

Perhaps a small section of each province of ~1 million people could have their own shift. Spread congestion across the entire city, thus alleviating it.

based on where they live, or where they work?

Based on where they live. Keep all industries open throughout the extended working day.

Do schedules increase productivity? How do we know that?
I really don't think instructing everyone on the wrong side of the river to get up an hour earlier is going to please anyone, or be democratic, or enforcable, or a good idea. What's needed is flexibility, choice, hope, audacity, is it a man , is it a bird?

I worked a rotating shift schedule and it was quite stressful. It was not like this 25 hour day idea but I wonder if similar problems might arise. My schedule was four days on pm shift, one day off, four days on midnight shift, one day off, four days on day shift, four days off. It sounds like it would work OK, but it could really screw with your sleep schedule. You end up feeling like you have perpetual jet lag. The 25 hour day may not have this problem but it would be something to experiment with to find out.

Keeping a city going 24/7 I like, but I would be interested to see how some "mom and pop" stores would be able to operate.

The whole point of civilization is to mold reality to our benefit, not to mold us to its benefit.

I say quality of life for its citizens is more important than the economic efficiency of a city.

I definitely agree. It seems we have more-or -less similar views, webtaz.

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The whole point of civilization is to mold reality to our benefit, not to mold us to its benefit.

How can reality benefit?

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I say quality of life for its citizens is more important than the economic efficiency of a city.

I agree, so why bother changing a day to 25-hours to be more "efficient?"

If a freak accident changed the Earths rotation to a 25 hour day, then it should change. But that's unlikely.