Why English Premier League fixtures change times

 By MUNGAI KIHANYA

The Sunday Nation

Nairobi,

11 November 2012

Cedric Anyieni from Eldoret is puzzled by the timing of the English Premier League (EPL) matches. He writes “I believe Kenya’s time is GMT +3. My question: is how come the timing of EPL matches varies from time to time? For example, on Saturday last week (20th October 2012), the early kick-off started at 2:45pm, yet this coming Saturday (3rd November 2012) it will start at 3:45pm! Why the discrepancy?”

Cedric is not alone in this; Francis Kimwea also wondered why his phone shows same time for Algiers and London, yet the former is in the GMT+1 time-zone.

These questions question bring out one of the advantages of living in a equatorial country like Kenya: we don’t have winter and summer seasons and therefore we don’t need to change our clocks back and forth. I wrote about this matter in March 2005 when again I was responding to a question from an EPL football fan. This is what I wrote then:

“GMT is always constant, what changes is British Standard Time (BST). In the winter months (October to March the following year), BST is equal to GMT, but in summer (March to October) BST is pushed one hour ahead of GMT. This year (2005), the changeover was done last night  – at 1:00am, all clocks were pushed one hour ahead to read 2:00am.

“Thus while yesterday (March 26) Britain was three hours behind Kenya, today (March 27) it is two hours behind. The reverse adjustment will be done in October – at 2:00am on the 30th day of that month, all clocks will be pushed back to read 1:00am. Obviously, the next question is; why make these changes? …”

If you want the answer to that last question, then I suggest you dig out the article of 27 March 2005 from your nearest Kenya National Library… For now, let it be enough to note that this year (2012), the change from BST to GMT was done early in the morning of 28 October. 

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The next question comes from an anonymous reader who wants to know how to distinguish between a star and a planet in the night sky. The answer is that planets don not twinkle. They shine steadily and are usually slightly brighter than the average star.

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Another reader, Tom Mutinda, asks a theoretical question: “When an object travels faster than the speed of sound we experience a sonic boom. I am just wondering what would happen if an object travelled faster than the speed of light. Practically this might not be possible but, theoretically, would we experience a 'photonic boom' or something similar?”

Actually, Tom, it is theoretically impossible to travel faster than light! Indeed, it was through theoretical analysis that Albert Einstein first postulated that the speed of light is the absolute maximum limit. This fact was proved experimentally many decades afterwards.

Nevertheless; I will attempt to answer your question. A sonic boom occurs because the supersonic object is able to overtake its own sound waves.  But the theory of relativity says that an object can never catch up with a beam of light – the beam will always be faster! Therefore, there is nothing like a “photonic boom”.