Global time zones, particularly when flying long distance east or west – where does the lost/gained time go/come from?

Question

I hate admitting this. I’m 46, educated and logical, but I don’t TRULY understand how time zones work – when I flew to America from the UK the flight was 8 hours, but when I landed, only 2 hours had elapsed in local time but it’s the same day. Where does the time go? Does it sort of get saved up at the international date line and cancelled or something? I hate admitting I don’t really understand this.

In: 0

Answer 1

It doesn’t go anywhere… imagine a book and each chapter is a timezone. You normally start you day at chapter 1…but when you go across timezones suddenly you’re at chapter 4. It’s kinda like that except there’s a never ending cycle of the first few pages disappearing, like the minutes of the day.