Timezones

Timezones are a construct so that noon, i.e. the culmination of the sun, is roughly at 12 o'clock local time on every place on earth¹, i.e. on every longitude. This is achieved by dividing the earth into 24 timezones², each 15° or 1h wide. The timezones have values from -12 to +12³, with 0 being UTC. While the earth rotates, the sun rises in eastern timezones before it does in western timezones. Thus, the timezones are numbered from east (+12 in New Zealand) to west (-12 on some uninhabited islands of the USA).

UTC everywhere?

This is all fun and games, but makes working with dates and times a pain. Alternatively, we could use UTC everywhere. This would mean that people in New York would have noon at 7 o'clock (7 a.m.), while people in Singapore would have noon at 20 o'clock (8 p.m.). Strange? No!

Seasons and Hemispheres

It's the same for seasons in the northern and southern hemisphere. While Christmas in Berlin means snowy winter, it means summer in Sydney. In line with time zones, one could say: Let's make date zones. Only two are needed here: the northern hemisphere would use the current date while the southern hemisphere would use the same date shifted by half a year. So everyone has winter in December and summer in July :)

Hmm, too complicated? Yes, but so are time zones.