What Time is it Anyway?

I don't believe it, either; your post's title strip says 8:30 PM, and I don't think Canada has any time zones that far away from my Alaska time.

aha. I discover that my own little time strip says 2 am, from where I'm sitting. So I guess it shows the times in my area time, even yours Tornado which says 2:36 am on my screen.

you can sync your computers clock with the atomic one in Boulder Colo. using this : http://www.atomtime.com/

There is no such thing as absolute time. Even Einstein rejected it. Time is a protocol. The protocol is: with the sun at its highest point in the sky, the local time is 12:00 noon, so the label "high noon" was invented.

The problem was that in order to catch the 3pm train from Bristol to London, the traveller had to be there by 14 minutes to the hour, otherwise the train would have gone, because Bristol clocks were set differently to London clocks and that was a complete pain the derrière. Enter stage left: Railway Time protocol. Railway station clocks were set to agree with the watch of the Guard on the first train to leave London after 10:00am London Time. Eventually Bristol had to follow suit, because London is a bit bigger than Bristol, and London could have got a bit snotty about it. Come to think of it, London is still snottier than Bristol all these years later.

Then along came another protocol. During the summer, the UK and Eire are 1 hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time [GMT], and during the winter, they are both on GMT. And it causes great issues for those that live in the Shetland Islands, because these people don't get much daylight during the winter and can't get to sleep during the summer. Don't mention Double Summer Time, introduced for a few years to deter potential invaders. Just don't mention it.

OK, so one is travelling on an international flight from the UK to, oh pick a town, say Vancouver and one is flying over New Brunswick. What is the time on the ground according to local clocks? At the same instant, what is the time in the plane according to travellers' wrist watches still set to the departure time <philosophical question>? Enter Time Zones and the International Date Line otherwise the World wouldn't know what on Earth is going on, quite literally.

China finally agreed that it was 1949 in 1949, and that was that. Only it wasn't 1949 according to some people, who maintain their date protocols according to the teachings of various long-lasting revered texts. Some people think that 2010 is actually 2013. It's even worse for people in the thought-provoking fim The Matrix, becuase those people don't know what the date is at all.

Now, that lot wasn't enough for some people, because the Earth wobbles as it spins, so noon isn't in the same place each day. So along came Coordinated Universal Time [UTC], which is a flavour of time that is regulated by atomic clocks, which get rid of the effects of the Earth's wobble. It's got something to do with the frequency of light coming from Caesium atoms. Not just any old Caesium atoms, ALL Caesium atoms.

What is the time on the Moon <rhetorical question>? It's the same as Earth time, which is a real con for those that want to live there. Some nutter has even proposed a 24-month calendar and a time standard for planet Mars, which will be handy when mankind gets there, because they will know what the time is and how long it will be before the return trip gets going (assuming they want to come back and that there is something for them to come back to, that is).

It's all very confusing. So, start with the Wikipedia articles and go from there?

Thank you. I needed the chuckle this morning!

The whole standard time thing leaves me staring at the sky on times, wondering when it is really noon.

time check

Regards JD

A while back, I'd just been to a cash machine and someone asked me the time.
I still had the printed receipt with the time stamp on it so I pulled it out of my pocket looked at it and said confidently "It's 3:45".
I got a bit of a funny look.
I've kept that bit of paper, it's still right twice a day.
Del

Isn't that what Eccles said in The Goon Show?

You could be right, the story was borrowed from an alcoholic I used to work with.
I was repurposing it.
Which reminds me I must get my poetic licence renewed.
Del

repurposing

<splarf>

thought that was elephants

I think the band Chicago can settle it. They asked the question "Does Any Body Really Know What Time It Is?" and also provided the answer "25 or 6 to 4".

Naw, it's five o'clock

http://www.newkerala.com/world-time-now/index2.php?timezone=Canada/East-Saskatchewan

"http://www.newkerala.com/world-time-now/index2.php?timezone=Canada/East-Saskatchewan"

Eastern Standard Time would have worked also, as Canada is a well-known suburb of New York City. ~Grog

PS: What happened to the old CR4 editor that worked with Firefox on a Mac? This one looks like a V0.1 HTML editor. Are we making progress?

"The clock on my wall is the one I rely on: it says it is ten to two in the morning and I'm finding that hard to believe. How are the clocks set here, can I validate my actual time." Aw jeez, don't tell me the 'Ten to Two Meanies' are back. I thought we sprayed for those. ~Grog