| Time Zones Since Toronto is 3000 miles west of London, UK, and Toronto is 3000 miles east of Vancouver, why is there a difference of 5 hours between Toronto and London, but only 3 hours between Toronto and Vancouver? |
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 eksterHi there
join:2010-07-16
Lachine, QC
kudos:2 | Toronto to London is about 3,000 miles.
Toronto to Vancouver is about 3,000 KM, or 2,000 miles. |
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 Bender2000Bite My Shiny Metal AssPremium
join:2002-05-06
Dollard-Des-Ormeaux, QC | reply to zylo
time zones are pretty arbitrary. Distance isn't really the big factor here. Just lines of longitude that someone decided were the places time zones would be. You stand 1 foot on the Quebec side of the Quebec/New Brunswick border and the time is say 10:00AM. Cross the border into New Brunswick just over a foot away, and it's 11:00AM. |
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 donoreoPremium
join:2002-05-30
North York, ON | reply to zylo
Blame Sir Sanford Flemming |
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| reply to zylo
Same reason Newfoundland runs a half hour difference, a bureaucrat deemed it so. The original idea was to place zones every 15 degrees of longitude; however geopolitical interests and practicality intervened to move the borders around. Fundamentally the idea is stupid anyways; time zones are an average approximation of local time across an outrageously wide area.
A better system is to drop time zones, make everyone use UTC and abort daylight saving time. |
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| I'm not for aborting DST. On June 21 here in Ottawa the sun rises at 05:15 and sets at 20:55. If we were on standard time the sun would rise and set an hour earlier. Sunset at 5 minutes to 8 in late June? No thanks.
-Bob |
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Reviews:
 ·callwithus
·Callcentric
| reply to zylo
said by zylo :Since Toronto is 3000 miles west of London, UK, and Toronto is 3000 miles east of Vancouver....
Your premise is wrong anyway.
Look at the longitudes (rounded):
Vancouver: 123 degrees west
Toronto: 79 degrees west
London UK: 0 degrees (rounded, it's almost 0 because Greenwich is there)
So Toronto is closer to Vancouver than to London UK. |
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Reviews:
·callwithus
·Callcentric
| reply to Thane_Bitter
said by Thane_Bitter:A better system is to drop time zones, make everyone use UTC....
[That] would never be.
Metric conversion is not even complete (in Canada or UK) in all these years---why does the OP use "miles"---and going to UTC for everyday use would be 1,000 times harder. |
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Reviews:
·voip.ms
| reply to zylo
Having done the "time zone shuffle" recent when traveling from Toronto to Tokyo, I can vouch for the fact that while the idea of there being "one universal time" (UTC) sounds good, it would be a trainwreck to implement it.
Hell, we can't even get the world to agree on which time display format to use (24 hour clock versus AM & PM)
NefCanuck |
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Reviews:
·callwithus
·Callcentric
| reply to donoreo
said by donoreo:Sir Sanford Flemming Certainly one of the most important Canadians ever, a true "essential man".
And one of the most significant people ever to live in Peterborough.  |
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Reviews:
·callwithus
·Callcentric
| reply to NefCanuck
said by NefCanuck:Hell, we can't even get the world to agree on which time display format to use (24 hour clock versus AM & PM)
Or date format, or calendar for that matter. |
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 GuspazGuspazPremium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
kudos:20 | reply to zylo
We can't even agree what systems to use in the same country. Everything in Quebec is in the 24h clock, while the rest of the country uses 12h clocks. The upside of this is that since I grew up with the 12h clock (it's an anglophone thing), but live and work for years with the 24h clock, I can function with both 
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Latest version of CapSavvy systray usage checker: »CapSavvy v4.2 released! |
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| reply to Gershom 1624
I wouldn’t suggest metric time; it is a bit too abstract for any sort of use, either day to day or even in scientific circles. 
I am just suggesting that when it comes to commerce, business, anything global it would have benefits. I admit there is a great psychological stumbling block, people like the comfort of certain numbers, why do people celebrate a clock flipping from 11:59 to 12:00 and suffer from a hangover but bitch and moan when their alarm clock goes off at 5:00 am for a day at work.
You are right, the metric system will never be fully used, in an effort to make it symmetrical they include units that few will ever use, deca, hector & deci for example. Metric time is a joke because it has no relation to anything natural on earth with respect to night and day cycles. I doubt the building trade will drop inches and feet in the next 50 years, and given the current state in your nation, I doubt there will ever be any traction or motivation to repeal daylight saving time which means we are stuck with it. |
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Reviews:
·voip.ms
| reply to Guspaz
said by Guspaz:We can't even agree what systems to use in the same country. Everything in Quebec is in the 24h clock, while the rest of the country uses 12h clocks. The upside of this is that since I grew up with the 12h clock (it's an anglophone thing), but live and work for years with the 24h clock, I can function with both
I'm used to the 24H clock thing because I have Swiss parents and they normally ran things on the 24 hour clock, makes things much easier when you travel to countries that use it.
In fact I have my watch set to display digital 24h clock along with the analogue 12 hour clock.
NefCanuck |
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eksterHi there
join:2010-07-16
Lachine, QC
kudos:2 Reviews:
·FreePhoneLine
 ·TekSavvy DSL
| It might be because I grew up in Russia and it's pretty much a standard there... but I seriously cannot understand why some adults have so much trouble learning the 24h format, which is just a simple subtraction of 12.
Even if you're not used to it, it shouldn't take more than 2 seconds to do the math. |
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GuspazGuspazPremium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
kudos:20 | reply to zylo
Doing two seconds of math every single time you see a time gets confusing and inefficient. |
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eksterHi there
join:2010-07-16
Lachine, QC
kudos:2 | It shouldn't take long to get used to it if someone actually does the math a couple of times. And I really do not see how subtracting 12 can be confusing. It's 1st grade math. |
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Reviews:
·callwithus
·Callcentric
| said by ekster:It shouldn't take long to get used to it if someone actually does the math a couple of times. And I really do not see how subtracting 12 can be confusing. It's 1st grade math.
Don't underestimate the power of social inertia.
Where is the planet that served as a model? Which planet rotates in precisely one Galactic Standard Day of twenty-four Galactic Standard Hours?"
Trevize looked thoughtful and thrust out his lower lip. "You think that might be Earth? Surely Galactic Standard could have been based on the local characteristics of any world, might it not?"
"Not likely. It's not the human way. Trantor was the capital world of the Galaxy for twelve thousand years---the most populous world for twenty thousand years---yet it did not impose its rotation period of 1.08 Galactic Standard Days on all the Galaxy. And Terminus's rotation period is 0.91 GSD and we don't enforce ours on the planets dominated by us. Every planet makes use of its own private calculations in its own Local Planetary Day system, and for matters of interplanetary importance converts---with the help of computers---back and forth between LPD and GSD. The Galactic Standard Day must come from Earth]"
"Why is it a must?"
"For one thing, Earth was once the only inhabited world, so naturally its day and year would be standard and would very likely remain standard out of social inertia as other worlds were populated. Then, too, the model I produced was that of an Earth that rotated on its axis in just twenty-four Galactic Standard Hours and that revolved about its sun in just one Galactic Standard Year."
"Might that not be coincidence?"
Pelorat laughed. "Now it is you who are talking coincidence. Would you care to lay a wager on such a thing happening by coincidence?"
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Reviews:
 ·Cogeco Cable
| reply to Guspaz
said by Guspaz:Doing two seconds of math every single time you see a time gets confusing and inefficient.
Kids initially have a hard time with military time too but eventually its second nature and it's just as efficient once you've used it more than a couple of times. |
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lutful... of ideasPremium
join:2005-06-16
Ottawa, ON Reviews:
·TekSavvy DSL
| reply to zylo
Mountain time zone is much wider in Canada than in USA and pacific time zone goes lot more west than in USA.
»www.timeanddate.com/time/map/
The map shows lots of anomalies: Mexico and Colombia are central time (UTC-5) ... in between, countries on mountain time (UTC-6). |
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| What a great map. It even gives you sun rise and set times for the red dots + weather TY |
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