We are accustomed to the passage of time, to the fact that on the planet the inhabitants of different countries and cities live according to their own local hours. Who came up with this separation when the states came to an agreement on this issue, and what interesting facts are connected with a planetary phenomenon, what is the standard time?
How did you come up with the time?
We will not consider such a grandiose concept as time in its true sense, but only touch on its “zone” part. A bit of general information: it is universally accepted to count as hours the hours during which the Earth makes a revolution around its axis. This is the so-called sunny day, the average duration of which is a little less than 24 hours.
The length of the day does not change depending on the geographical area. Only the current time in different parts of the planet changes. If before people did not think about this fact, then the development of transport routes, business and economic ties led to the fact that the time difference began to cause some inconvenience.
The initiator of synchronization and allocation of different time zones was the Canadian Sandford Fleming. Naturally, Sir Fleming was not a simple resident of the country. He was a talented engineer, whose creation was the Canadian railway, and a passionate traveler. It was the confusion in time during travel, and then the movement of railway transport, that led to the fact that time was introduced. The starting point for the world time system was 1885 (in some sources - 1883) year.
The basic principles of the system
What is the principle of division into time zones? The idea is quite simple: the division takes place along the meridians, which are indicated by numbers from 0 to 23. In each subsequent or previous time, it differs from the zero point by 1 hour. As a starting point, the time of the
zero meridian, which passes through the British city of Greenwich, was taken. Every 15
0 a new meridian runs and the time zone changes. Thus, standard time is a generally accepted
time system
defined by 24 meridians.
Entertaining facts
As expected, the introduction of such a global system was not without incidents and simply interesting facts. First, let’s talk about those that have affected standard time in Russia
- The system proposed by Sir Fleming was adopted in our state in 1919 (only a year later than the United States).
- In 1930, “maternity” time was introduced (+1 hour to standard time), which existed until 1981. Its input was justified by energy savings.
- Entering time zones led to the fact that the time for residents of different banks of the Ob River in Novosibirsk differed by an hour. The dividing line runs along the river, but today, however, the watches from Novosibirsk show the same time.
- During the period of the existence of the USSR, the correction of time zones and time in them occurred about 40 times (the annual switch of hands to winter and summer time does not count).
Global facts about time
- Date line. It passes along the 12th meridian. West of it, time is shifted one day ahead relative to the eastern side. The moment when the same day (date) exists in the whole world, happens only at that moment when the line of change of dates is midnight, and on the meridian 0 it is noon.
- In the Pacific Islands of Line, the time difference with some geographical points is 25 hours.
- The time difference between Greenwich and Nepal is 5 hours 45 minutes.
- Crossing the border between Afghanistan and China will force the hands to switch by 3.5 hours.
- The Englishman will say that if you turn the clock upside down, you can find out what time it is in India. All due to the fact that India chose for itself a difference of 5 ½ hours relative to the “zero” time.
Here it is, standard time.