Member-only story
Should we all live in the same time zone?
Should we abolish time zones and instead live in a large time zone that spans the globe?
This idea might sound crazy, but in fact, a Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) exists. It is the time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time and is mainly used for flight plans, air traffic control, software developers, or weather forecasts to avoid confusion over time zones.
Why do we have time zones?
Time zones were established after the invention of the railway. Prior, each city set its clock to the local position of the sun. This wasn’t a problem in the past, because traveling from one place to another was so slow that you couldn’t notice the slight differences in local time. This all changed with the invention of the railway because now standardized timetables were needed to coordinate trains.
Although there was regional harmonization, our clocks nonetheless follow the sun more or less today, because people still want the course of the sun to be in harmony with their clocks.
However, the question remains, if it is really so important that the sun peaks around 12 am? Wouldn’t it be less confusing, if all humans would just use one universal time zone?