World Time Scales
One of the most important but overlooked tasks that any day holds for us is the keeping track of time. Clocks and time zones dictate when we wake, when we sleep, and the order through which we proceed through that day's events. But understanding the idea of time scales is a bit more complicated than moving your clock back or forth depending on where your most recent flight has landed. Let this article provide you with a slightly more thorough understanding of time zones and scales.
Greenwich Mean Time
Greenwich Mean Time might just be the most misunderstood yet ubiquitous time signature around. Even the name might provoke grimaces and the scratching of heads. The title refers to the Royal Observatory that is located in Greenwich, a locale in London. It all got started in the late 1800s, as Great Britain was quickly rising to its place as the most powerful nautical nation in the world.
In order to maintain awareness of sailors' and seamen's distance from the Greenwich Meridian (historically recognized as having zero degrees latitude), they invented the aptly named time scheme. There is a lot of contemporary debate on the usefulness of GMT nowadays and its actual differences from Coordinated Universal Time.
Coordinated Universal Time
This type of time standard is the one universally recognized and acknowledged as the most used and useful of any time scheme. This is the clock to which computers and other electronics are mandated to synchronize. The notation of "UTC" is in fact a collaboration and compromise of Coordinated Universal Time's translations into both English and French.
Time zones also function as the official units of coordinated universal time, and regulate our understanding of the passage of night and day throughout the world. The Earth's rotation is slowly beginning to slow down, and as such UTC has allowed for the occasional leap second, which puts UTC everywhere in every time zone up one second.
The World's Time Zones
It is very important that you recognize time zones not in terms of the passage of time but rather by the idea of longitude. Time zones form their boundaries longitudinally, and not in fact by minutes and hours.
U.S. Naval Observatory Time
Just as the British empire founded GMT to help position its naval community, the United States devised the Observatory to provide more specfic and detailed location data on its Navy; it was first inaugurated in 1845. The institution moved to Washington, D.C. about twenty years later, and it continues to rank among the foremost time standard operations in the world for the purposes of astronomy, mathematics, and navigation.
Additional Resources
Greenwich Mean Time. Go to this official site to find out how to convert your current time to GMT. This is an easy-to-use and important resource.
Time Service Department. This is the official website for United States Naval Obsevatory Time. Pick up even more history and details about this special and important time scale.
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Come to this site to learn much more on how to convert into UTC official time. The web page uses a handy and clearly defined chart to help you out.
The Official Time of the United States of America. This site allows you to peer into the exact and official time that the USA uses for the books. It's a great resource to introduce to children and young people.
World Time Zone. This is arguably the best web site around that allows you to convert your current time to the hour and minute of any other environment in the world. There's a beautiful, colorful, frequently updated time chart graph.
