fanfic question. yeah. that's what i meant.

so, um.... trying to look innocent, here...

so, um, what's the time zone difference between, say, California and New York? is it 6 hours?

California is on the west coast and New York is on the east coast - the difference between them is 3 hours (California being 3 behind).

Julie

I have The World Clock bookmarked. With so many friends all over the world, it's nice to know what time they're in without having to remember so many time zones. There's even an option for you to personalize... pick your cities, and those are the only ones that will show up on your time table.

Just thought I'd add... might be helpful.

Sara

thanks everybody!

only three? thoroughly fooled me. england I know is 6 hours ahead of us. (i know coz i got a baby sister living over there!)

i need to purchase myself a genuine bona fide globe and study it.

And don't forget to account for Daylight Savings Time, which sometimes is and sometimes isn't in effect. I've lived in the US all my adult life, and I still can't keep all the time zones straight without counting on my fingers. I'm just lucky I still have all eleven of them.

Oh, that part is easy. There are 37 counties in Indiana, I believe, that do not observe Daylight Saving Time. During the summer, they're on Eastern. In the winter, they're on Central.

Most of Arizona is the same way. In the summer, they're on (okay, not so easy, I can't remember if they're Central/Mountain or Mountain/Pacific..) Pacific, and in the winter, they're on Mountain.

Hrm.. checking this site , Indiana will start observing DST in April. Which will help some of the confusion.

Arizona is on Mountain Standard Time, which, incidently, is the same as Pacific Standard Time during DST.

This site says:

Although the actual page on Arizona mentions that there's a Navajo community in NE Arizona that does observe DST.

So, because everyone around me does that silly thing with their clocks every so often, I can never keep up with what the time differences are... hence the reason for the world clock I use.

Sara (happily always in MST )

I could be mistaken, but I believe that Congress recently passed legislation concerning DST which said, in part, that states must either be all DST or all not. Parts of states can determine what time zone they are in but cannot opt for either going on DST or not. I believe western Indiana has chosen to be in the Central Time Zone and eastern Indiana in the Eastern Time Zone.

If I recall my history correctly, in the 19th century, there was no standardization of time until railroads criscrossed the country. Each area just decided for themselves what would determine their time, ie...12:00 noon would be when the sun was at its zenith over the bank or some such reasoning. Railroads needed to run on timetables, and timetables needed to be standardized by determining the time of day in the same way everywhere. The movement of the sun from east to west necessitated different time zones.

Sorry, sometimes I get carried away. The story of how DST came about is equally interesting (or not), but all this can probably be found by Googling.

Jude

holy cow. I started a debate on time.

hadn't been back into this section for a week or so. um.... have fun!

actually we just rolled over off of dst this weekend (I am, of course, as always, trying to save my extra hour for some more sleep on monday!), and I wasn't totally sure that it was *this* weekend, so I hadda fish around on line and found some web sites on it. unfortunately, I'm too lazy to put the links in.

Hi,

Here in Puerto Rico we don't have Daylight Saving Time.

MAF

I'm in a central time zone and we fell back an hour early this morning. I keep thinking it is late, but it isn't. UGH. I like falling back as opposed to springing forward.