why are there time zones?

Question

what are time zones?

Answer 1

We have time zones because it is day in some parts of the world and night in others. The Earth rotates, which means it depends on which part of the world you are whether it is day or not. The sun rises in A.M. time, yes? Well if there weren't time zones then for some people morning would be P.M. not A.M.

Answer 2

A time zone is a region of the Earth that has adopted the same standard time, usually referred to as the local time. Most adjacent time zones are exactly one hour apart, and by convention compute their local time as an offset from Greenwich Mean Time (see also UTC).

Standard time zones can be defined by geometrically subdividing the Earth's spheroid into 24 lunes (wedge-shaped sections), bordered by meridians each 15° of longitude apart. The local time in neighbouring zones is then exactly one hour different. However, political and geographical practicalities can result in irregularly-shaped zones that follow political boundaries or that change their time seasonally (as with daylight saving time), as well as being subject to occasional redefinition as political conditions change.

There are variations of the definitions of time zone which generally fall into two meanings: a time zone can represent a region where the local time is some fixed offset from a global reference (usually UTC), or a time zone can represent a region throughout which the local time is always consistent even though the offset may fluctuate seasonally.

Before the adoption of time zones, people used local solar time (originally apparent solar time, as with a sundial; and, later, mean solar time). Mean solar time is the average over a year of apparent solar time. Its difference from apparent solar time is the equation of time.

This became increasingly awkward as railways and telecommunications improved, because clocks differed between places by an amount corresponding to the difference in their geographical longitude, which was usually not a convenient number. This problem could be solved by synchronizing the clocks in all localities, but then in many places the local time would differ markedly from the solar time to which people are accustomed. Time zones are thus a compromise, relaxing the complex geographic dependence while still allowing local time to approximate the mean solar time. There has been a general trend to push the boundaries of time zones farther west of their designated meridians in order to create a permanent daylight saving time effect. The increase in worldwide communication has further increased the need for interacting parties to communicate mutually comprehensible time references to one another.

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Answer 3

Let me expand on Sarai's good answer, and note that the reason why we have "zones" as opposed to having all the clocks synchronized with the local solar time is to make life a little easier. An entire city, county, or part of state would then have the same time, so that if you wake up at 7, and it takes you an hour to get to work, you can expect to be there at 8. For example.

Answer 4

There are 24 time zones. Even the United States has six (Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, Hawaii).

Answer 5

The railroads started the idea of time zones to ensure an orderly standard of time. The British applied this concept to the world, being that they were the dominant empire at the time.

Answer 6

time zones are the areas in which or Earth is divided on the basis of time differences.Time zones aredivided vertically. there are time zones so as there is no confusion of time.

Answer 7

because the earth is round and rotates. half the earth is dark and the other half is light at any given point in time. time zones allow everyone on earth to experience the usefulness of measured time on the same scale.