If they knew the earth rotated, then they could assume that noon happened at different times at different locations. But did they have a way to prove this without being able to travel or communicate fast enough to observe the effects?
In: Mathematics
Up until the late 19th century, all time was local. The idea that it could be a different time 100 or 1,000 miles away had almost nothing to do with the day to day lives of anyone. It was only the arrival of relatively high-speed, long-distance travel that had to be coordinated that led to the development of the concept of time zones.
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