Dragaera

Time and longitude

Howard Brazee howard at brazee.net
Wed Feb 16 11:00:15 PST 2005

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 13:32:57 -0500, Peter H. Granzeau <pgranzeau at cox.net>
wrote:

> Then The Empire is about the size of Europe, or roughly 4 million square
> miles.   China is about 3.7 million square miles and is in one time zone.
>  China is in one time zone because the Chinese have ignored geography.   
> Solar noon occurs over a range of about 4 hours at various places in  
> China.  The United States could be put into one time zone with exactly  
> the same logic (governmental fiat).

We do have governmental fiats to set up our current time zones.   There
are places in the world that are 1/2 and even 1/4 hours from their
neighbors.   Why not have time zones every 1/2 hour apart?   That would
allow noon to be closer to reality.   But in a country that has daylight
savings time, the relationship between our clocks and reality apparently
isn't much of a concern.

There's nothing special about 1 hour, except that it makes adjusting
clocks easier.


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