Does anybody really know what time it is?

[Luke]

Does anybody really care?

This thread is an overflow from another concerning UTC conversions. The way I understand it is once upon a time when you traveled from town to town you would reset your watch in each town based on "what time the sun was directly overhead" or noon. All was well until the railroads came along and people were able to move from A to B as fast as a speeding locomotive. Problem was "noon" in New York was not the same as "noon" in say, Oakland.

It was decided to to divide the world into 24 time zones each space 15 Degrees of longitude apart. "because Earth completes a rotation every 24 hours and there are 360º of longitude, so each hour Earth rotates 1/24th of a circle or 15º."

Now to my little pea brain this sounds like a combination of math/geography and geometry, but so far I am able to understand.

They had to start somewhere so it was decided that Greenwich England is at 0 degrees longitude ,so that would be the 1st, or PRIME MERIDIAN. now known as GMT. Every zone to the right of this would be - 1hour until you reached the 12th hour and found yourself in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where you reached... THE INTERNATIONAL DATE LINE. ...I am not quite clear how, but I know you either lose or gain a day of the week depending on which direction you are headed.

This is also the point where my state of confusion peaks higher than my limit of understanding.

It is possible to bounce radio waves, which are much faster than a speeding locomotive off the atmosphere, around the world. So if I were to talk to someone by radio on the other side of the international dateline would that not be time travel?

Somedays it may be better to just stay in bed.

[American Patriot]

It is possible to bounce radio waves, which are much faster than a speeding locomotive off the atmosphere, around the world. So if I were to talk to someone by radio on the other side of the international dateline would that not be time travel?

hehehehehe

Good question.

A couple of answers for you.

Time is "relative".

Some notes...

technically you don't bounce radio signals off the atmosphere, you bounce them off the IONOSPHERE (which is, yes, still AIR and still part of the atmosphere, but it is high up and highly rarified.. meaning you couldnt breathe there)

Time is a manmade intention, really. We MEASURE it.. but, it is something that is really not there, and there at the same time.

When we talk to someone "now" on a radio, we're talking to them "now" in their time too. And so, speaking to someone might be instantaneous over several time zones, HOWEVER, it does take TIME for the radio wave to reach there. In fact, there can be a noticeable delay in radio traffic propagating around the planet.

A radio signal bounced off the moon, depending on the distance to the moon at any given time and returned to the Earth and received will take approximately 3 seconds. This will vary based on the exact distance to the moon (and you can actually MEASURE this distance with radio waves or lasers).

So... no, you're not really "traveling through time" in the sense that you're suggesting.

[American Patriot]

Every zone to the right of this would be - 1hour until you reached the 12th hour and found yourself in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where you reached...

Looking at the map it would be LEFT.

If it is England right now, it must be... 8:05 PM there (20:05 UTC). And it is 14:05 here, thus, right now, I'm at -6 hours.

[Backstop]

I thought this was gonna be about the Chicago song.

I admit I know nothing about the implementation of time, but I thought about this a long time ago:

The electricity in the U.S. is 60hz - 60 seconds in a minute, and 60 minutes in an hour. Any relation there - such as implementation considerations?

And who even decided that - 60 secs per min, 60 mins per hour?

Also, France using 50hz may explain some things...

[Luke]

The only thing I really know for sure about 60hz is it creates a major hum in electric guitar pickups, which led to the development of the "humbucking" pickup.

I believe I have read that the reason we us Alternating Current(AC) instead of Direct Current (DC) is because of a rift between Thomas Edison (AC) and Nicholas Tesla (DC).

I also was under the impression that electricity is not stable at 60hz, but fluctuates a few hz (cycles) all the time. I think they make electric units to correct this.

I am told in Europe they even use different recpticles.

60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, not sure about that but I would think it has to do with the revolution of the Earth, somehow. Another of those pesky math/geometry/geography things.

I am in agreement about the French.