![]() In 1675, the Royal Observatory was founded in Greenwich to study and chart the stars to establish longitude for naval navigation. As instant communication with anywhere else was impossible, only local noon was relevant to a given population. Ironically, every location had its own distinct noon before time zones as we now know them were ever imagined. As the sun is at its highest point in the sky in the middle of daylight hours, this became midday, or noon. The origin of time zonesīefore the invention of mechanical clocks, sun clocks used the position or length of a shadow cast in daylight to measure time. By dividing the surface of the Earth into 24 time zones, we ensure that noon is as close to the highest point of the sun’s arc for every location. It would also have a seriously detrimental effect on the mental wellbeing of a large part of the global population. As humans are naturally most active during daylight hours, this would cause chaos for international business and commerce. If we had one global time zone, noon would be in the middle of the day for some locations, but in the morning, evening or night for others. Whatever your location on the globe it will rotate into sunlight and then into darkness, which we perceive as day and night respectively. Each 24 hours, the Earth performs one complete rotation, which is why a day is 24 hours long. These two places, therefore, have the biggest time difference of 26 hours.Why is it different times in different countries, who came up with the idea and when did it start? To understand the concept, picture the Earth rotating as it circles the sun on its yearly orbit. The Republic of Kiribati’s Line Islands, which have a time zone of +14 hours UTC, are on the far east of the earth. The Howland islands, an unincorporated unorganized territory of the United States, use a time zone of -12 hours UTC on the far west of the earth. With this information, then the biggest time difference between two places on earth is a whole 26 hours. ![]() Areas with +13 hours UTC will have a difference of 25 hours from areas with -12 hours UTC. Essentially, this means that areas with -12 hours UTC and +14 hours UTC will have a difference of a whole 26 hours, which is beyond the theoretical 24 hours. Some areas on earth use a time zone of +13 hours UTC or even +14 hours UTC. Some areas on earth use time zones that exist but are not defined by the current time convention. Some places on earth do not use the international time zones, that is, they do not use the UTC system of +12 and -12 hours UTC. The reason for this time difference is that one end would have a time of +12 hours UTC while the other would have a time of -12 hours UTC, which would mean a difference of 24 hours on a number line. Given that there are 24 hours in a day, it is logical to state that the biggest time difference between two points on earth would be 24 hours. An area on earth can either be ahead (+) or behind (-) the UTC, which means that UTC is 0 hours. Therefore, time zones in the world are obtained from the UTC. The first Coordinated Universal Time was officially accepted in 1963 while the official abbreviations of the aforementioned times were adopted later on in 1967. In other countries, especially English speaking countries, the phrase Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is used to mean the same thing as UTC. The clocks in the world are under the regulation of the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is not adjusted for daylight savings. The largest difference between the time zones of two countries is 26 hours between the Howland Islands and the Line Islands. The time zones are defined by the boundaries of countries. A time zone refers to a place on earth that uses a uniform standard time in order to streamline legal, social, and commercial activities.
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