Skip to content
  • Categories
  • Recent
  • Tags
  • Popular
  • World
  • Users
  • Groups
Skins
  • Light
  • Cerulean
  • Cosmo
  • Flatly
  • Journal
  • Litera
  • Lumen
  • Lux
  • Materia
  • Minty
  • Morph
  • Pulse
  • Sandstone
  • Simplex
  • Sketchy
  • Spacelab
  • United
  • Yeti
  • Zephyr
  • Dark
  • Cyborg
  • Darkly
  • Quartz
  • Slate
  • Solar
  • Superhero
  • Vapor

  • Default (No Skin)
  • No Skin
Collapse
Brand Logo

agnos.is Forums

  1. Home
  2. Ask Lemmy
  3. Why don't the whole planet just use UTC+00:00 / Universal Time without time zones?

Why don't the whole planet just use UTC+00:00 / Universal Time without time zones?

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Ask Lemmy
asklemmy
153 Posts 71 Posters 453 Views
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as topic
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
  • P [email protected]

    Why isn't this a popular thing?

    F This user is from outside of this forum
    F This user is from outside of this forum
    [email protected]
    wrote on last edited by
    #29

    I see this argument all the time. Forget all the tradition, "people like noon near solar noon", all that.

    Date changes mid day some places and not others would be a nightmare for so many things.

    What're you doing on the Tuesday half of June 15/16th?

    artisian@lemmy.worldA W 2 Replies Last reply
    4
    • G [email protected]

      I don't understand what you're asking here. I'm saying if you kept UTC in every place on earth, you'd still have to relate those hours to a solar based local time. If you wake up at 6UTC in London and then travel to Moscow, the sun in Moscow would rise 3 hours earlier (guessing, not sure exactly what time time difference is). So if Moscow was also keeping UTC, they would set their alarms for 3UTC to wake up with the sun. If you travel to Moscow, you'd wake up at 3UTC with the sun, which is the equivalent of 3am London time, but is around sunrise locally. This is just how time zones work, so I have no idea where the confusion is.

      baronvonj@lemmy.worldB This user is from outside of this forum
      baronvonj@lemmy.worldB This user is from outside of this forum
      [email protected]
      wrote on last edited by
      #30

      I mistook your original comment about the alarm clock. I wasn't reading it as the clocks in all timezones being set to UTC and rather that you wanted to keep your daily routine aligned with the daily solar cycle of the time zone you left.

      G 1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • M [email protected]

        Well, that is neat. When using metric and celsius:

        • 1 kilometer is 1.000 meters.
        • 1 square meter of water weighs exactly 1 tonne. (1.000 kilo also known as a kilokilo)
        • The vastly superior metric dozen is exactly 10.
        • Water freezes at exactly 0 degrees.
        • 1 meter of water takes exactly 100 minutes - a metric hour - to completely evaporate when heated to 100 degrees. Doing so requires exactly 1 kilowatt of power.
        saltsong@startrek.websiteS This user is from outside of this forum
        saltsong@startrek.websiteS This user is from outside of this forum
        [email protected]
        wrote on last edited by
        #31

        Your last point is wrong, at least as you have stated it. Evaporation time is based on surface area, and the required power is based on volume, but you expressed the amount of water as a length.

        Still, metric is way better.

        1 Reply Last reply
        0
        • andyburke@fedia.ioA [email protected]

          For no time zones? πŸ™‹β€β™‚οΈ

          sxan@midwest.socialS This user is from outside of this forum
          sxan@midwest.socialS This user is from outside of this forum
          [email protected]
          wrote on last edited by
          #32

          Do you also want the day to change from Sunday to Monday in the middle of your Sunday morning? Or do we change days at different hours everywhere?

          andyburke@fedia.ioA 1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • H [email protected]

            The cultural relationship with time is more important than its absolute measurement.

            saltsong@startrek.websiteS This user is from outside of this forum
            saltsong@startrek.websiteS This user is from outside of this forum
            [email protected]
            wrote on last edited by
            #33

            Tell that to the trains.

            H 1 Reply Last reply
            0
            • F [email protected]

              I see this argument all the time. Forget all the tradition, "people like noon near solar noon", all that.

              Date changes mid day some places and not others would be a nightmare for so many things.

              What're you doing on the Tuesday half of June 15/16th?

              artisian@lemmy.worldA This user is from outside of this forum
              artisian@lemmy.worldA This user is from outside of this forum
              [email protected]
              wrote on last edited by
              #34

              This sounds like something legitimately terrifying, but I'm struggling to make it concrete. Could you expand on the example a bit?

              S 1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • sxan@midwest.socialS [email protected]

                Do you also want the day to change from Sunday to Monday in the middle of your Sunday morning? Or do we change days at different hours everywhere?

                andyburke@fedia.ioA This user is from outside of this forum
                andyburke@fedia.ioA This user is from outside of this forum
                [email protected]
                wrote on last edited by
                #35

                Everyone changes days at the same time. That's the point.

                You would get used to the switchover being in the middle of your working/waking day.

                This wouldn't be a big deal and if it were the status quo I bet someone, if not you, would be saying how dumb having everyone on different days would be in the mirror universe version of this thread.

                sxan@midwest.socialS 1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • F [email protected]

                  I see this argument all the time. Forget all the tradition, "people like noon near solar noon", all that.

                  Date changes mid day some places and not others would be a nightmare for so many things.

                  What're you doing on the Tuesday half of June 15/16th?

                  W This user is from outside of this forum
                  W This user is from outside of this forum
                  [email protected]
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #36

                  This happens anyway. I literally have meetings every week where it's Tuesday night for everyone else on the meeting, and Wednesday morning for me.

                  N 1 Reply Last reply
                  2
                  • baronvonj@lemmy.worldB [email protected]

                    I mistook your original comment about the alarm clock. I wasn't reading it as the clocks in all timezones being set to UTC and rather that you wanted to keep your daily routine aligned with the daily solar cycle of the time zone you left.

                    G This user is from outside of this forum
                    G This user is from outside of this forum
                    [email protected]
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #37

                    Ahh, no! I was agreeing with the top comment that using UTC everywhere would cause more problems. Glad we're on the same page now!

                    1 Reply Last reply
                    2
                    • artisian@lemmy.worldA [email protected]

                      This sounds like something legitimately terrifying, but I'm struggling to make it concrete. Could you expand on the example a bit?

                      S This user is from outside of this forum
                      S This user is from outside of this forum
                      [email protected]
                      wrote on last edited by [email protected]
                      #38

                      Take some place currently having UTC+12 time zone, say Marshall Islands. Midnight by UTC, the moment date changes, is exactly noon there. So how should people there talk about time? There is no "Tuesday the 15th of May" there, because every day is one part one date, other part another date

                      So yeah. For computers and programmers "whole planet lives in UTC" might look like a boon (for a time I myself wished for it), but only until they start facing other, more twisted problems

                      1 Reply Last reply
                      1
                      • andyburke@fedia.ioA [email protected]

                        Everyone changes days at the same time. That's the point.

                        You would get used to the switchover being in the middle of your working/waking day.

                        This wouldn't be a big deal and if it were the status quo I bet someone, if not you, would be saying how dumb having everyone on different days would be in the mirror universe version of this thread.

                        sxan@midwest.socialS This user is from outside of this forum
                        sxan@midwest.socialS This user is from outside of this forum
                        [email protected]
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #39

                        Yeah, that doesn't sound like a major PITA. At all.

                        "What's the date?"

                        "I don't know; what's the time?"

                        andyburke@fedia.ioA 1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • P [email protected]

                          Why isn't this a popular thing?

                          S This user is from outside of this forum
                          S This user is from outside of this forum
                          [email protected]
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #40

                          Momentum

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • S [email protected]

                            Milliseconds since the epoch is the only true time

                            S This user is from outside of this forum
                            S This user is from outside of this forum
                            [email protected]
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #41

                            2 more bits could have kept us in the same epoch pretty much forever. What were they thinking??

                            S 1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • L [email protected]

                              Because timezones were a result of town specific clocks, which were a result of people liking certain hours happening generally in line with where the sun is, like "noon" which still technically refers to when the sun is at its highest point.

                              S This user is from outside of this forum
                              S This user is from outside of this forum
                              [email protected]
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #42

                              Its a simple matter to define noon as whatever utc time you want for wherever you are

                              1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • P [email protected]

                                Why isn't this a popular thing?

                                D This user is from outside of this forum
                                D This user is from outside of this forum
                                [email protected]
                                wrote on last edited by [email protected]
                                #43

                                Here are some reasons told through what-if.

                                TL;DR:
                                People like to sleep in the dark generally, and businesses that close are open when more people are awake.

                                E 1 Reply Last reply
                                3
                                • S [email protected]

                                  2 more bits could have kept us in the same epoch pretty much forever. What were they thinking??

                                  S This user is from outside of this forum
                                  S This user is from outside of this forum
                                  [email protected]
                                  wrote on last edited by [email protected]
                                  #44

                                  You get over 584 million years in 2^64 ms. 66-bit computers are a bit tough to come by!

                                  S 1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • S [email protected]

                                    You get over 584 million years in 2^64 ms. 66-bit computers are a bit tough to come by!

                                    S This user is from outside of this forum
                                    S This user is from outside of this forum
                                    [email protected]
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #45

                                    Unix time is 32bit seconds, not milliseconds

                                    1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • P [email protected]

                                      Why isn't this a popular thing?

                                      N This user is from outside of this forum
                                      N This user is from outside of this forum
                                      [email protected]
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #46

                                      So you want to abolish time zones.

                                      1 Reply Last reply
                                      16
                                      • sxan@midwest.socialS [email protected]

                                        Yeah, that doesn't sound like a major PITA. At all.

                                        "What's the date?"

                                        "I don't know; what's the time?"

                                        andyburke@fedia.ioA This user is from outside of this forum
                                        andyburke@fedia.ioA This user is from outside of this forum
                                        [email protected]
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #47

                                        Have you ... have you never stayed up past midnight? πŸ‘€

                                        sxan@midwest.socialS 1 Reply Last reply
                                        0
                                        • saltsong@startrek.websiteS [email protected]

                                          Tell that to the trains.

                                          H This user is from outside of this forum
                                          H This user is from outside of this forum
                                          [email protected]
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #48

                                          Trains still accepted that noon should be near the middle of the day. Time zones came from railroads trying to standardize time.

                                          saltsong@startrek.websiteS 1 Reply Last reply
                                          1
                                          Reply
                                          • Reply as topic
                                          Log in to reply
                                          • Oldest to Newest
                                          • Newest to Oldest
                                          • Most Votes


                                          • Login

                                          • Login or register to search.
                                          • First post
                                            Last post
                                          0
                                          • Categories
                                          • Recent
                                          • Tags
                                          • Popular
                                          • World
                                          • Users
                                          • Groups