Larry Sessions

There is so much controversy over Daylight Saving Time — who benefits?, does it really save energy?, is it worth the hassle? – that maybe we should dump it altogether in favor of “Mecca Time.” At least that is what some Muslim scientists meeting in Qatar have called for — nothing less than the worldwide adoption of Mecca Time over Greenwich Mean Time, according to a report in the BBC. Science, they claim, has “proven” that the Saudi city of Mecca, ground zero for Moslem pilgrimages, is the “center of the world.” One Arabic scientist says that this is so because Mecca is in “perfect alignment” with magnetic North, whatever that means.

Changing to Mecca time, he claims, will help clear up time discrepancies between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, make the blood and circulatory systems work better, and apparently heal the aged and infirm. The mechanism is some vague, undocumented and frankly absurd negative properties attributed to the Earth’s magnetic field. Even if this were true, its relation to our time keeping system would be unknown and probably non-existent.

As best I can tell, Mecca has a magnetic declination of several degrees East, although it appears to be near the magnetic equator. But even if it were exactly on the magnetic equator and the “magnetic prime meridian,” so to speak, so what? Time is an arbitrarily defined concept to begin with, so it makes no real difference if we define it based on the meridian of London, Tokyo, Sydney or Mecca. But since it already is defined based on Greenwich time (or one of the many associated systems), what possible value — scientific or practical — would we gain by changing it?

It would make about as much sense as renaming the Moon for Groucho Marx. “Oh, look! There’s a full Groucho out tonight.” Or can you imagine a romantic walk in the Groucho-light? A Moon by any other name would be as bright, but what sense does it make to change it?

Changing the time zones to coincide with “Mecca Time” makes about as much sense as… well, Daylight Saving Time.