international time difference

vicars | 10:21 Wed 11th Jan 2006 | Science

7 Answers

Is the time outside of the UK always measured in hours difference or do countries sometimes use half hours as well?

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Robert G

Some use half hours difference. For example, the time in Delhi right now is five and a half hours ahead of the time in London.

Robert G

As well as time zones in India (of which I think there are two, because Rangoon is 1 hour ahead of Delhi), other countries or states have half hour differences compared with most nations:

Afghanistan
Australia North
Newfoundland
Iran
Myanmar
Nepal
Norfolk Island
Sri Lanka

I seem to recall that not many years ago, there were one or two places (possibly a group of islands in the Atlantic Ocean - maybe Cape Verde Islands) where there was a quarter hour difference.

JudgeJ

As a matter of interest (though not directly related to the original question) it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that time was standardised across Britain.

Up to that time each town or locality kept its own “local” time, and noon was when the sun was at its highest point in the sky. This meant that from the eastern to western extremities there was a variation of about thirty minutes. Noon in Bristol, for example, occurred about fifteen minutes after noon in London.

Whilst communications were slow this did not particularly matter. However, by the 1840s the railways (and to a lesser degree the Post Office and Telegraph companies) suffered inconvenience as a result of this.

A number of railway companies lobbied Parliament urging the adoption of what they called “London Time” as the standard. Parliament (as usual) was reticent to make such a radical change and for a time most railways ran to “London Time” regardless of local time. Many stations displayed two clocks, one showing Local time and another London (or Railway) time.

It was not until August 1880 that the Statutes (Definition of time) Bill was implemented, linking the whole country to GMT. At last, a "standard" time was in use across the whole of Britain, and there was no more confusion caused by local time