![]() ![]() Using this convention, EST = UTC – 5:00, while GMT = UTC + 0:00. For instance, time zones are often expressed as the offset from UTC. Technically, GMT and UTC are not the same thing-GMT is a time zone, and UTC is the universally agreed-upon time standard for all time zones. The mean local time in Greenwich is maintained as the time standard and is called Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). ![]() EST is based on the 75th west meridian, CST is based on the 90th west meridian, MST is based on the 105th west meridian, and PST is based on the 120th west meridian. There are four time zones in the lower 48 states of the United States-Eastern Standard Time (EST), Central Standard Time (CST), Mountain Standard Time (MST), and Pacific Standard Time (PST). Since 360 degrees divided by 24 hours is 15 degrees/hour, there should be 24 time zones around the world, each keeping the local time of standard meridians that were at multiples of 15 degrees of longitude. ![]() Ideally, time zones are at one-hour increments. GMT is the time zone based upon the Prime Meridian, which passes through Greenwich. Standard time consists of time zones in which all locations within a time zone observe the local time on a standard meridian of longitude. Since the UK does not have a great east-west extent, the entire nation could maintain the same time, but this was not feasible in the much larger US and Canada. The UK had already encountered this problem with its train schedules and had solved it by placing all the UK on the same time, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). This solution was built upon the practice the British had adopted a few years earlier. To solve this problem, in 1883 the railroads of the United States and Canada adopted standard time. With every stop observing its own local time, it was impossible to adopt consistent train schedules. With the completion of the US Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, followed by the linking of many cities and towns into a rail network, a problem with time differences between railroad stops arose. Consequently, every town had its own time standard. Ship travel between continents typically took weeks, so a few hours’ difference in time between the origin and the destination didn’t matter either. That trip represented two hours in time difference, but with the required six-month transit, that two hours was not noticeable. For instance, in the 1840s, American pioneers began to trek in wagon trains from Missouri to the newly acquired West Coast. Until rather late in the nineteenth century, people didn’t worry much about the time of day being different around the world. With this questionable fix, the entire flat earth would not experience the same time simultaneously, so I and other critics of flat earth who are well-read on the modern flat-earth movement do not use this argument. Explanation of sunrise and sunset (among other things) requires additional add-ons that I have discussed elsewhere. In the zetetic model, the sun is always above the earth, so sunset and sunrise are not possible. Night occurred when the sun was above the earth’s disk opposite from one’s location. In Rowbotham’s view, a location experienced daylight only when the sun was near that location. This reality made it difficult for Rowbotham to convince others that the earth is flat, so he invented his zetetic model, with the sun acting as a sort of spotlight moving in a circle above the flat earth. Furthermore, anyone could carry a pocket watch on a long-distance train trip to see that noon did not occur simultaneously across a continent, with the implication that time of day varied around the world. Long-distance communication available then, such as the telegraph and the telephone, would have made this obvious to anyone who used such modern communication devices over long distances. Lacking rapid travel and communication, people in the ancient world generally were not aware of this problem for a flat earth.īy the time Samuel Rowbotham reintroduced the flat earth in the nineteenth century, it was well-known that the entire earth did not experience the same time. We reckon time by the sun’s position in the sky, so in such cosmologies, the entire earth would experience the same time. Consequently, sunrise would occur simultaneously throughout the world, as would noon and sunset. These cosmologies pictured the earth as a disk with the sun, moon, and stars revolving around the earth, first over and then under the disk. With ancient flat-earth cosmologies, time zones indeed would have been a problem. When people first hear about the flat-earth movement, one of the initial objections they think of is that time zones don’t work on a flat earth. ![]()
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