right i may be real stupid but its something i can get my head round, can someone explain:........ if London, UK is 1pm then spain is 2pm and Cyprus is 3pm etc etc and the other way will be 12am, 11am, 10am etc etc..
what happens around the other side of the world? does it miss a day? please explain its doing my head in

My friend in Australia is 11hrs in front of us...
If he was an identical twin would he now be 11 hours older than me :huh: ?

Soz Natts can't help but thanks for giving me a headache lol:D

Natalie, I'll try and explain! lol :loopy:

Time is divided by an International Date Line . It's an imaginary line on the earth's surface, that approximately coincides with the 180th meridian (LONGITUDE). It separates the calendar date, so travelling east across the line takes the traveler back one day and traveling west takes the traveler forward one day.
Funny thing is it's been recognized as a matter of convenience and has no force in international law!

I think I need to go to bed now... :hihi:

Originally posted by Briano
Natalie, I'll try and explain! lol :loopy:

Time is divided by an International Date Line . It's an imaginary line on the earth's surface, that approximately coincides with the 180th meridian (LONGITUDE). It separates the calendar date, so travelling east across the line takes the traveler back one day and traveling west takes the traveler forward one day.
Funny thing is it's been recognized as a matter of convenience and has no force in international law!

I think I need to go to bed now... :hihi:
so if one guy goes east and one west, what happens when they meet?:(

If they meet on the time line after walking around the earth, one will have travelled 'forwards' in time and the other will have travelled 'backwards'. When they cross the line into one anothers sides it will be the same time but a different day...

If I'm not explaining too well try 'International Date Line' in Google maybe!

my head hurts.................

Mine too.... :partyhat:

my head hurts.................

You aren't alone Natalie - after many explanations from 2 different maths teachers (both of whom had PhDs in maths) when I was studying for O level the whole longitude & latitude thing was no clearer to me.

In the end they barred me from asking questions about it (I was driving them mad) & just told me to ignore any questions about it on the paper :blush:

Originally posted by Siân
You aren't alone Natalie - after many explanations from 2 different maths teachers (both of whom had PhDs in maths) when I was studying for O level the whole longitude & latitude thing was no clearer to me.

In the end they barred me from asking questions about it (I was driving them mad) & just told me to ignore any questions about it on the paper :blush:
:D i always got told off for asking too many questions at school and confusing people heheh
do the different day meet in the sea? that must confuse ships
oh god here we go again ....migrain....

If that country did the lottery, you could pop over the time line to the next zone & put on tomorrows numbers!

woohoo!

It's the same as putting your clocks backwards or forwards an hour except that it's 24 hours. On a boat it's done gradually so that each morning you wake up and have to adjust your watch depending on how fast the ship travels.

One morning you wake up, somewhere in the Pacific, and you adjust your watch as normal but you also adjust your calendar.

On one ship we were travelling from NZ eastwards and we put the calendar back a day. Some of the passengers were convinced we had lost a day. Where's Wednesday, they asked. It's tomorrow, we replied. Mind, it was these same people who thought the Panama Canal was there because the Atlantic was way higher than the Pacific. :loopy:

the earth rotates clockwise, half of it in shadow (night) and half of it in light (daytime).

If you divide the earth like a terrys chocolate orange into 24 slices and number them 1 to 24 in a clockwise direction (as you look down on it) and then illuminate it from the side (with a medium sized star) you will see that half of the slices are in daylight and half are in shadow. These are your "time zones"

Rotate the earth (i mean chocolate orange) clockwise (as you look down on it) until slice number 6 enters the lit portion of the orange. You will see that slice no 18 is about to enter darkness.

Slice number 6 (6am) is dawn, slice number 12 (12pm) is midday and slice no 18 (6pm) is dusk. - all at the same time.

Local time is simply a measure of how high the sun is in the sky where you are.

Every full revolution is a day, it's just that the day starts earlier the further east you go until you reach the international date line, which is precisely between slice 24 and slice 1.

Easy

Alternatively, sod the time zones and eat the chocolate orange!

I'm now confused over something that I don't even care about. I'm going to have to follow this now till I work out what's going on.

the sun rises in the east, so if it rises at say 6.am on the first of january at greenwich,london, the other side of the world is still in shadow,so its night time which makes it the 31,st of december.

as the world turns, the sun reflects of the earth,eventually dawn comes up in the opposite side of the world to greenwich,which makes it a new day,the 1st of january,

back home the sun has gone down, when it re appears its dawn again,2nd of january, and so it goes,...on and on.

i think!

If you divide the earth like a terrys chocolate orange into 24 slices

I like this mental pic - may have to get back to you to ask questions Phan (if u want to risk your hair being turned grey) - but atm I'm stuck on erasing Dawn French & giant red Xmas stocking from it before I can proceed ...

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
the earth rotates clockwise, half of it in shadow (night) and half of it in light (daytime).

If you divide the earth like a terrys chocolate orange into 24 slices and number them 1 to 24 in a clockwise direction (as you look down on it) and then illuminate it from the side (with a medium sized star) you will see that half of the slices are in daylight and half are in shadow. These are your "time zones"

Rotate the earth (i mean chocolate orange) clockwise (as you look down on it) until slice number 6 enters the lit portion of the orange. You will see that slice no 18 is about to enter darkness.

Slice number 6 (6am) is dawn, slice number 12 (12pm) is midday and slice no 18 (6pm) is dusk. - all at the same time.

Local time is simply a measure of how high the sun is in the sky where you are.

Every full revolution is a day, it's just that the day starts earlier the further east you go until you reach the international date line, which is precisely between slice 24 and slice 1.

Easy
im sorta getting it. but then i thinkif i stand and hold the north pole and run round in circles ill be time travelling back and forth?!?!?!?
i know the world is tilted but u get my drift