Re:Map of Proposed US Time Zone Changes
by tzs on Monday May 06, 2019 @11:42PM
(#19846328)
Coordinating or planning things involving places whose longitudes differ by more than about 15 degrees generally requires taking into account that longitude difference.
Right now, we do that via time zones. If we went to universal UTC we'd still need to be aware of and deal with those longitude differences. It would still be convenient to quantize those differences into multiples of 15 degrees...and so we still end up with zones.
We could call them "space zones" or "longitude zones" instead of "time zones", but since the main purpose is to let you figure out what time on your clock corresponds to events like sunrise in other locations, we might as well continue to call them "time zones".
Right now, we do that via time zones. If we went to universal UTC we'd still need to be aware of and deal with those longitude differences. It would still be convenient to quantize those differences into multiples of 15 degrees...and so we still end up with zones.
We could call them "space zones" or "longitude zones" instead of "time zones", but since the main purpose is to let you figure out what time on your clock corresponds to events like sunrise in other locations, we might as well continue to call them "time zones".