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.
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As the earth rotates, the sun covers a different part of the earth over time. Time zones basically try to normalize globally where the position of the sun (and thus light/dark should be). Otherwise noon in New York would be quite literally night and day different than noon in Beijing, which makes trade and communication more confusing and complicated.
You’re not actually gaining or losing any time persay – just gaining or losing daylight hours by relocating to a different part of the globe.
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