Question

What time will it be 120°W, if it is 11 AM Tuesday at 0° longitude?

Answer 1

Step-by-step explanation:

It depends on what particular place in the world, at 0° longitude you choose for it to be 11am at. And the time of year. And also the place at 120°W.

In the simplistic world of maths homework, for every 15° west, the time will be one hour later. So your simple place at 120°W will be 8 hours behind your simple place at 0°. That makes it 3am on the same day.

BUT, for the real world. you should consider the following… 0° longitude runs through part of the UK. I live approximately 1/5 of a degree to the west of it. Here, in the winter, the time is the time you would expect based on the longitude. Good! But in the summer (like now) our clocks are set one hour ahead - daylight savings time. So in the summer if my clock reads 11am it is really only 10am according to the position of the sun.

Let’s complicate things a bit more! The 0° longitude line runs through France and Spain. Both those countries use Central European Time which is one hour ahead of UK time at all times. So on the 0° line in France and Spain when the clocks say 11am in the summer, the position of the sun is indicating only 9am. And in the winter, 10 am.

Now let’s look at 120°W. This runs through British Columbia in Canada, and continues south in to the USA, passing through Washington, Oregon and California. As far as I’m aware, all those places use the Pacific Time Zone which “agrees” with the time given by the position of the sun as 120°W. Great! Well, expect of course in the summer when the time is one hour ahead - daylight savings again!

And what about further north in Canada? 120°W forms part of the Alberta/BC border. And the last time I was in Alberta their time was an hour ahead of BC. Still further north 120°W goes through Northwest Territories, which also is an hour ahead of Pacific Time - or what it “should” be, according to the sun. And they, too, use daylight savings time in the summer.

So my complications mean that your simplistic answer of 3am might sometimes be correct. Or might not. In the middle of March, my clock in London (on UTC - daylight savings hasn’t started yet) reads 11am whilst in NT, Canada on 120°W the clock reads 5am. A month later when my clock reads 11am, the clock in NT will read 4am. Clocks in BC would have read 4am and 3am at those times of year. And, if we take a clock reading 11am at 0° in France, the NT clock in mid-March will read 4am, and in April, 3am. The clock in BC will read 3am in mid-March and 2am in April.

So in the real world, if a clock, somewhere on 0° longitude reads 11am, another clock, somewhere on 120°W could read either 2am, 3am, 4am or 5am.

Hope its help..

Answer 2

Answer:

Step-by-step explanation: