So I understand that there are time zones and the time at any given moment varies across locations, BUT is there a more subtle difference from place to place? For example, does southern California and northern California have like a time difference of a couple seconds or something like that? Is every location, no matter how far from each other, slightly different? Because, for me, it doesn’t make sense that there is just some line that you cross and all of a sudden you’re 1 hour ahead or 2 hours ahead etc.
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Tracking time is entirely a human construct
There’s no reason we can use a Universal clock for the whole planet. Technically we have that UTC or Universal Time, also called Greenwich Mean Time or GMT.
The problem is that people base their day on the time. Noon is when the sun is the highest, you go to work for 8am, etc
If you use Universal time noon would be in the evening in North America and people don’t like that. Which is why timezones exist.
Timezones are kinda, not really, but mostly just lines drawn on a map that says “for this area the clock will be X hours ahead or behind GMT so that noon is when the sun is directly overhead”
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