Have you ever looked at a map of global time zones? Where one might assume longitudinal time zone bands would appear as uniform divisions of time, this is not the case. Instead each zones seem to zig-zag and weave its way from pole to pole.
Many time zones have been adjusted to suit economic needs. For instance Samoa and Tokelau skipped a whole day to move to a new time zone that allowed them to conduct business more easily with New Zealand:
www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16351377 While we take time zones for granted, they haven't always existed and even today there is some indecision about how many time zones there are:
"Given a 24-hour day and 360 degrees of longitude around the Earth, it is obvious that the world's standard time zones have to be 15 degrees wide, on average. It is worth mentioning that some sources claim there are 24 standard time zones, while others say there are 25 time zones. The perspective of the number of time zones depends on the definition of a time zone versus the International Date Line. The world also has non-standard time zones."
www.timeanddate.com/time/time-zones-history.html Is it time to review the way we think about time? Given the global world we now live in have time zones had their day?
Matthew Yglesias thinks so. You can read his ideas in full here:
www.vox.com/2014/8/5/5970767/case-against-time-zones or watch this short explanatory clip:
Does he have a point? Are time zones confusing and unnecessary? Or would a single world time zone just make things even more confusing?
What do you think?
Image:
www.infoplease.com