At 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in April — April 2 in 2000 — we set our clocks forward an hour to a time we call Daylight Saving Time. But we won’t really be saving any daylight. Rather, we will be saving the energy it takes to produce the electric light we use to stay awake at night. The annual switch to Daylight Saving Time — and, on the last Sunday in October, back to Standard Time — is the price we pay for our modern clocks and lights.

As recently as the 14th century, Europeans still used variable hour lengths, with daytime hours lasting longer in the summer and nighttime hours lasting longer in the winter. Mechanical clocks put an end to such seasonal accommodations. And in the late 19th century, Thomas Edison’s light bulbs put an end to other accommodations such as going to bed when it got dark.

By World War I both Europe and the United States had become dangerously dependent on mechanical clocks and electric lights. But suddenly the energy needed to produce the light was needed to fight the war, and Daylight Saving Time was born.

The Germans were the first to see that energy could be saved by turning clock time ahead an hour to put people to bed an hour earlier. It made clearly observable sense for seven months of the year, and during the war other countries followed suit. The United States began its first Daylight Saving Time on March 31, 1918, and ended it on October 27, 1918.

Since the end of World War I, Daylight Saving Time has come and gone several times in several different forms. During World War II, for instance, it was in force continuously from February 9, 1942, to September 30, 1945. Later, during the Arab oil crisis of the mid-1970s, it started as early as January 6 in 1974 and February 23 in 1975.

Today the Uniform Time Act of 1966 as amended in 1986 governs Daylight Saving Time. What began as a response to mechanical time, electric light, and the energy demands of war is now administered by the Department of Transportation.

My body, meanwhile, is administered by forces considerably more ancient than the Department of Transportation — and clocks, light bulbs, and wars, for that matter. I wake up on sun time, and having to change to new clock times always discombobulates me.

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