Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Greenwich Mean Time GMT


ALOHA IRL 
(In Real Time)


Good Morning - Good Afternoon
- Good Evening -
or Happy Tomorrow

Time? A trick Question!


"Traveling is almost
 like talking with men
of other centuries." 

René Descartes





" Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. "
 
Henry David Thoreau


" Time is money. "
Benjamin Franklin














"Travel penetrates your consciousness,
but not in a rational way." 

Milton Glaser











In 1714
England's Parliament offered a large cash prize
for the solution to the problem of longitude.



Once at sea
all sailors, except the Polynesians,
(click HERE for more on them)
were essentially lost.




John Harrison
created a marine clock
perfect enough to keep accurate time
on high seas in the age of sail.
Something not yet available
on land at the time!


The Royal Observatory at Greenwich
was designated 
ZERO.

Hence, every place on Earth
could be designated 
Greenwich Mean Time
(GMT) plus or minus.
Calculations then yielded
longitudinal position
anywhere in the world.



When my friends in Great Britain
are going online at 9am Tuesday
it is still 11pm Monday
here in my Hawaii.


(HST = Hawaiian Standard Time
HST is constant throughout the year.


When I get down to business at 9am
it is already 2pm in New York.
3pm in Summer!
(Daylight Saving Time = DST)



U.S. Navy Hamilton W.W. II era 
Circa 1942
Has been called: "The clock that won the war."

" The present is a point just passed.  "
David Russell
 
 Are YOU West of Greenwich
like me?



Or Are YOU East of Greenwich?




What once was a sign of
cultural achievement
and an age of empire
  is today an agreed-upon
standard
  of convenience to ALL.


We understand
that the same
sky belongs
to all of us.
" A vision of truth 
which does not call upon us
to get out of our armchair - 
why, this is the desideratum of mankind!  "

John Jay Chapman


Why such is the 
blogosphere (!)

that current, but timeless 
world
that we here
create
and inhabit.
incidentally:

On November 18, 1883 the US established local standard time zones.
Before that, time could vary from town to town,
which didn't matter so much until railroads
brought the future to rural America


Thank YOU for journeying here.
What time is it in your life? 
                                              Warmly, cloudia