Importance of Time Zones

To better understand the nature and all his phenomena, the human being has created an endless number of artifices that very adequately fulfill his objective. Among others we find time zones, artificial designs that are arranged on a map to organize the schedules and the different times of the day as well as the time distance between the territories of the planet.

Understanding what a time zone is: an important element in our daily lives

Although we rarely stop to think about this, the reality is that time zones are an extremely useful creation for our lives. Because? He planet Earth, like all the other planets in the solar system, rotates on its axis permanently and this motion He is the one who makes the transition from day to night. While it also moves around the Sun (movement that gives the change of seasons), the rotational movement causes that when It is day in one part of the world, it is night in the opposite part because at that moment the planet has its back to the Sun. This change is part of our daily lives but it was not until the development of the

capitalism that the human being needed to know exactly the time of day.

Structure of time zones and layout

If we take into account that until the Middle Ages, the change in daylight hours was measured with sundials that were not very accurate (since they marked periods of time) and that with the Modernity arises the notion of clock as we know it today, it is understandable that as time passes, the human being has needed to control and know more accurately the pace weather.

Time zones were designed that allowed the map to be divided planisphere of the Earth in 24 different time zones, each one representing one of the 24 hours that a day occupies. In this way, each time zone meant that a region of the planet, in a vertical line, showed a time and so on with respect to the other regions. This was established from the Greenwich meridian which crosses London and which was taken as the zero parameter from which to start counting. In fact, there is a small building in London where the passage of this meridian is visually arranged.

Why are time zones useful?

Having graphically arranged the different schedules that the planet runs according to a region is an artifice created by man that is very useful for our lives. First of all, it allows us to locate ourselves within a time slot depending on our location on the map. Here it must be taken into account that time zones are not perfect vertical lines like meridians, but rather They have been adapted to the different borders in order to achieve that in a country there is the least possible variety of schedules.

The usefulness of the time zone has to do especially with being able to calculate the time distance between the place where I am located and any other point on the planet. This is calculated from the Greenwich meridian, to which you must add hours if you go to its west and subtract hours if you go to its east.

Photos: Fotolia. WavebreakMediaMicro – tiero