
Time Zones: What If We Got Rid of Them? – Co.Exist – Ideas and Impact - xoher
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3056950/time-zones-what-if-we-got-rid-of-them?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fast-company-daily-coexist&position=1&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=02262016
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dalke
> Henry points out that from a physics perspective, there is only one time

From a physics perspective, isn't there only local time, so every point has
its own time?

In any case, proposals like his have been around since the 1800s.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandford_Fleming#Inventor_of_w...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandford_Fleming#Inventor_of_worldwide_standard_time)
:

> After missing a train in 1876 in Ireland because its printed schedule listed
> p.m. instead of a.m., he proposed a single 24-hour clock for the entire
> world, located at the centre of the Earth and not linked to any surface
> meridian.[8] At a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute on February 8,
> 1879 he linked it to the anti-meridian of Greenwich (now 180°). He suggested
> that standard time zones could be used locally, but they were subordinate to
> his single world time, which he called Cosmic Time.

Thus, we can look again at the argument from the article:

> If 19th-century technology brought the world closer together, then Hanke and
> Henry argue that the Internet has eliminated distance completely

and realize that a single clock was also a proposed solution to 19th-century
problems, and the internet (or long-distance telephone service) is not a key
difference between now and the previous 150 years.

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dragonwriter
> Henry points out that from a physics perspective, there is only one time.

Relativity rather forcefully disagrees with this contention.

> The professors—who also propose an unchanging calendar that would always
> start on a Monday, but let's deal with one crazy time-keeping idea at a
> time—are hoping that the world will adopt their plan in 2018.

It is somewhat more likely that human civilization will be completely
annihilated by a to-this-date-unknown object smashing into the Earth between
now and 2018 than it is that the world, or any significant subset of the
political jurisdiction that exist on it, will adopt this plan in (or by) 2018.

~~~
dllthomas
Relativity disagrees with one time, but not in a way that usefully aligns with
time zones.

