Sunday, February 28, 2010

Time Feels Arbiturary

No matter how many times it is explained to me, I never got the theory of relativity, and like gravity, I like time to be set in stone, as it were; unfailingly regular and unchanging.

In looking when I should close the Unnamed Challenge, I was looking up different time zones of the world. Nukualofa, Tonga is the same as New Zealand, (at least in the summer - not sure if they have daylight savings,) whereas Apia, Samoa and Pago Pago, American Samoa is exactly 24 hours behind us.

As a kid, I used to be fascinated by the concept of international dateline; I still am. We've even stayed at Nukualofa's International Dateline Hotel once; wasn't as romantic as the name suggests, but it seems they've put in a lot of work since 1998.

Anyway, I learned we have nearly 30 hours before everybody is finished with February 28, 2010. I'm sorry it's going to be one of those dates some people won't forget for a long, long time.

4 comments:

  1. But how can it be 30 hours? Shouldn't it be 24?

    Sorry I never seems to understand this in fully. But I have been in Greenwich, at the time line. I think twice. Doesn't seems to help!


    Gosh, and now I'm back to my old www-address. What is happening to me?

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  2. Oh, that was because NZ still had 6 hours left of the 28th.

    Last night, Ben watched the film, Legend, where Will Smith is mostly on his own, nobody else thought to have survived this virus or epidemic or some such. I kept thinking, if there is nobody else, and the media is gone, and if eventually electricity dies down so there are no clocks, etc, it's really up to you, or him, to "maintain" time and dates, if you get my meaning. It felt strange to think about not having the concept of the hours of the day, or days of the week, other than observing the more vague, general signs in nature.

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  3. Hi Meg, you posted 16 hours ago according to blogger and we have an hour and three quarters left before March begins.

    Date lines & time are tricky, I always wanted one of those globe maps of the world when I was a child, but I'm not sure it would help me understand, if I had one I'd have to make a model sun & moon and move the globe around them ...!

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  4. Dorothy, a long standing joke between Dad and his good friend Ron from Liverpool - they started arguing in 1961: if you ran around the North or South Pole clockwise over and over again, do you get younger? Mom and Mrs Ron wish they'd just agree to disagree!

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