Tuesday, June 14, 2005
A Question of time
Historically "solar time" was followed because of which even nearby cities had different local times.
Then the world adopted time zones where times vary at a granularity of 7.5 degrees in logitude or .5 hours.
Will it be a better design decision to have only one time ("zone") for the whole world?
Ofcourse this will have several side effects, for example the universal correspondence between the state of the sun and the time will be lost. For example at one place sun may rise at 0600 hrs and other place at 1400 hrs. Similarly the change of the day (date). If we assume the change of the day to happen at 2400 hrs then this may happen for one place in the morning and another place in the night.
Then the world adopted time zones where times vary at a granularity of 7.5 degrees in logitude or .5 hours.
Will it be a better design decision to have only one time ("zone") for the whole world?
Ofcourse this will have several side effects, for example the universal correspondence between the state of the sun and the time will be lost. For example at one place sun may rise at 0600 hrs and other place at 1400 hrs. Similarly the change of the day (date). If we assume the change of the day to happen at 2400 hrs then this may happen for one place in the morning and another place in the night.
