Welcome to You Ask Andy

Larry Zimmer, age 9, of Menomonee Falls, Wis., for his question:

HOW DO WE GET CORRECT TIME?

When it is 12 o'clock noon in your town, it is midnight in a town exactly on the other side of the world. The world is divided into 24 different time belts along longitudinal lines  the up and down lines that run from the north to the south. The lines are also called meridians, and all the land within the same meridians has the same time.

A village called Greenwich  it is pronounced gren ich  located about six miles from London, England, was the place from which most nations agreed correct time would originate. The Royal Observatory which stood directly on the Greenwich meridian was moved in 1953 to the 15th century Herstmonceux Castle in southeast England because London had spread out so much and city lights and smoky fog interfered with observations necessary for calling the correct time. Greenwich time is carefully figured by astronomers now from the observatory at Herstmonceux.

Since 1884 the chief nations of the world agreed on a system of broad time zones, in each of which there is a standard time based on the time at Greenwich, England. When it is noon in Greenwich it is 12 p.m. in Rome and 7 a.m. in New York and Toronto. It is also 6 a.m. in Wisconsin, 5 a.m. in Utah and 4 a.m. in California and British Columbia.

Standard time was first proposed by Charles Dowd, an American educator, and officially adopted in 1883. Railroad men of the United States and Canada actually accepted the idea before other countries and helped to establish the plan for a standard correct time.

The first time zone in Canada and the United States is called Eastern. Then moving west, we have the Central, Mountain and Pacific times, each one hour behind its neighbor. In northwestern North America there are three more time zones: Juneau, Central Alaskan and Nome. Central

Alaskan is two hours slower then Pacific time and five hours slower than Eastern.

Correct Greenwich time, is calculated by astronomers at the Royal Greenwich Observatory on a regular schedule throughout the day, and readings are sent to all parts of the world. And it beats the system of having everyone set his own watch at 12 when the sun is directly overhead.

The 24 time belts around the world are not drawn as straight lines, but rather follow a sensible pattern that take in location of cities and other considerations. At sea the lines are straight.

Each of the 24 zones are, generally, 15 degrees wide.

 

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