Mind Fuck: Day 7

Today I found out... Russia has 9 time zones! This has recently been reduced from 12 to avoid further confusion... To be fair, Russia is enormously big. It could fit the whole of Europe inside it quite comfortably about 3 times and so to have the same idea of time throughout the country would mean people waking up in Moscow at 3am to start their day while people in Chukotka in eastern Russia after midday to do the same. 

I have always been quite confused about time zones. They have always seemed unnecessary in my eyes, but then how else would we attempt to grasp time. It is simply about where you are in relation to the worlds daily cycle at any given point. London GMT is 15 minutes ahead of time than Bristol for example, but it would be silly for everyone to keep different time on such a small scale.

Hourly measurements are simpler ways of controlling this, to allow people to not only keep in time with each other but, to enable maximum hourly day-light.

Time is purely subjective but some pretty cleaver people have created a pretty straightforward way of keeping it no matter where you are in the world... You don't have to follow it but it's there if you need it.