[tz] [PATCH 3/3] * europe (Europe/Vaduz): Now a link to Europe/Zurich.

[Alois Treindl]

Paul, I would no trust this biography quoted below.

Astrology has played an important role in Switzerland during the 20th 
century, and a large number of astrologer's clients were born in the 
second half of the 19th century, the time period in question.

Swiss astrologers were professionally concerned about using correct 
time, and being Swiss, they took that serious.

All Swiss timezone history sources in astrology books and data 
collections maintain that all of Switzerland was legally on Berne time, 
starting 1851, until the introduction of CET on 1 June 1894.

The exception is Geneva, which was on Geneva mean time during this period.

There may be anecdotal evidence that some church clocks handled it 
differently, but this does not change the fact the Switzerland had a 
uniform standard time at that period.

-------------

By he way, the linking of Vaduz (Liechtenstein) with Zurich is 
***historically wrong***.

Liechtenstein was on LMT until 1 June 1894. Not on Berne time.

It also did not follow Switzerland with daylight saving time in 1941 and 
1942. No DST is recorded for Liechtenstein up to 1981, when it 
introduced it in 1981, a year later than the European Union.

My source at hand: Gabriel, Traite de l'heure dans le monde, edition 
1991. I have other sources at my office, but will not be there before 
next week.

Regards

Alois Treindl
Astrodienst, Zollikon Switzerland

On 10.09.13 08:40, Paul Eggert wrote:
> Brian Inglis wrote:
>
>> Would time standards have been set from local or national observatories,
>> universities with astronomy departments, or admiralty equivalents,
>> prior to and after standard time?
>
> Sure.  The Neuchatel Observatory had that role
> during the standardization of Swiss time in the 19th
> century.  But there was apparently a nontrivial difference
> between the time it kept and that of Swiss civil clocks.
> I've read stories of how one needed to change one's watch
> several times to walk around a Swiss lake in that era.
>
> I just now found more evidence that Zurich did not keep Bern
> time during the period in question, contra the claims in
> Shanks.  One block from Albert Einsten's old apartment in
> Bern is the Zytglogge (the "time bell"), Bern's main clock
> tower.  Ann M. Hentschel writes this about it:
>
>    During the second half of the 19th century, the clocktower had
>    the important task of indicating the local Bernese time. The
>    clockworks, including puppets that revolve on the hour, were
>    renovated in 1904. As early as 1874, the Society of Natural
>    Scientists had recommended that the city modernize its
>    timekeeping system and change over to a dozen public
>    electrically driven clocks. The new telegraph and railway
>    networks had made the introduction of a standard time
>    indispensable. Clocks in Zurich, for example, diverged from
>    Bernese clocks by as much as four and a half minutes.
>
> This gives a more-realistic picture of how timekeeping
> actually worked in Switzerland in the late 19th century.
> By today's standards it was a real zoo.  Even Einstein
> probably had trouble getting to work on time.
>
> My source:
>
> Hentschel AM.  The physical tourist: peripatetic highlights in Bern.
> Phys perspect 2005;7(1):107-29
> http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00016-004-0232-0
>