if I fly opposite the direction of the Earth’s rotation at the same speed of the rotation, will I stay in the same time of day as the days pass?

Question

How does time even work?

In: 8

Answer 1

Yes and no. You could keep the sun in the same relative position in the sky, so for example you could keep it high noon or at sunset indefinitely. You would of course need to fly at the speed of rotation *at your latitude* which is different at various latitudes.

You wouldn’t stay at the same time of day though because we standardized on time zones. In an ideal sense you would keep inside the same hour but while you are within a given time zone then officially that hour is passing normally, so for example you would go from 1:00AM to 1:59 AM then cross into the next time zone just in time for 1:00AM to start in that zone, etc. But of course the world isn’t ideal and the time zones aren’t perfectly regular as people shift them around for their convenience, so a cluster of islands doesn’t have a time zone running straight through them for example. This means you would actually tend to jump forward or backwards an hour periodically.