Who was the idiot that invented time-zones? what's wrong with it being the same time all over the world?

Answer 1

Ha hahahahahhahh!

Answer 2

Well, the answer to the first question is the railroad. And, of course, the answer to your second question is the same as the reason they invented it. Trains have two problems. The first problem is that if you only have one track then two trains cannot be traveling in opposite directions on that section at the same time. I'm sure most everyone has been on a road that was under construction and had to wait as the people directing traffic only allow cars to go from one direction at a time. This works because the people there have walkie talkies and can keep in touch at each end. The railroad had the telegraph of course but the scale of the problem was much greater.

Whereas cars can slow down and stop in less than 20 seconds it takes a train much more time and much more distance to do the same thing. If two trains will pass on a single track then one train must wait. The waiting area for a train is a short section of track with switches at each end that connect to the main track, a siding. The question is how long does this train need to wait? Ideally, as little as possible but if you don't know what time it is that wait could shift by a half hour or more. Ideally, this siding is at a train station and the train will allow another train to pass while it is stopped for passengers and cargo or taking on water and coal. But, it isn't that easy.

You see, each town theoretically used to measure time by the sun. When the sun was directly overhead that was noon. So, every town along a track had its own local time. Consider though that if the clock in the town square were wrong who would know? The only way to calibrate the clock would be to either use a sundial with seasonal adjustment charts or to make an astronomical observation with similar charts. Of course, this did not happen and each town not only had a different time but could have the wrong time as well.

The engineer traveling along the track with his watch would know what time he had but not what time each stop had. And, at the end of a day's run his watch would be off by perhaps half an hour. A train traveling the opposite direction would be off by half an hour as well. It is a difficult process for trains to keep to a schedule and arrive at a siding or train station at the right time. If the engineer knew exactly what the time was then he could run slower or faster to try keep to the schedule. But he would have to know what the time was. Careful scheduling is the only way to allow trains to run in both directions on a single track and universal time was the only way for engineers to know what the time was.

The answer was to split the east/west direction up into timezones. This greatly simplified the problem of accurate time because all stations inside a given timezone would have the same time. This meant that you only needed one master clock inside this zone. As long as one clock had the correct time the other stations along the route could set their clocks from the master clock. The engineer could set his watch at any of these station clocks and it would be correct until he went into another zone. Moving into another zone wouldn't be a problem because the boundaries didn't change.

So, that is the answer. The railroad created timezones to allow proper scheduling so that trains didn't run into each other and were delayed as little as possible.

Answer 3

The railroads invented time zones, actually. Before time zones were invented, each town had its own "high noon" which was usually confirmed visually. The problem with this was that each town's noon would be a few minutes off, and this threw off the train schedules. Time zones fixed this problem.

Answer 4

It's a great idea. Only thing is people would have to get used to Tuesday turning into Wednesday in the middle of the afternoon. For practical purposes its conveniant to have the date roll over while most people are at home in bed.

Answer 5

bcuz the sun shines on different parts of the world at different times therefor is we didnt hav time zones everything would still be messed up bcuz every time would mean a different time anyway..so to skip the confusion the made time zones

Answer 6

well in other country's it dark there when it's light here.
so in that case time zones are needed. as far as the u.s i think it should be the same time every where

Answer 7

Turns out that humans prefer to be up during the daytime.Thats why.

Answer 8

you want the sun to rise at midnight? come on now make some sort of sense.

Answer 9

I just got a call for you teri....
It's your village they are missing their idiot.

I found your question, sophomoric:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sophomoric

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/idiot.

Yours: Grumpy

Answer 10

too easy