How I'm reading this - the argument is: we need timezones because, above all, we all want time to be fairly inline with daylight hours everywhere or at least some approximation of a 9-5 workday?
Eh, maybe. I'm not convinced.
Eh, maybe. I'm not convinced.
"Yep!"
"Huh. Weird. So how did Grandma's test results turn out?"
we want to be able to say "in the morning" and have it be reliably interpreted, because most human activities are actually tied to the sun and not to the clock (the clock is incidental for precise timing, but it's just reflecting the sun position).
Sun wise, situations are a pretty different at any moment in the two countries. I wouldn't call the system "reliable" ( and those are not outliers, any zone with countries on opposite hemispheres has the same issue)
The sun is still at its high point at the same time of the day in both countries
No.
Helsinki's solar noon is about 35 minutes later than Cape Town's and 100 minutes later than Pretoria's.
This is normal, because time zones are mostly broken into non-uniform 1 hour increments across 180 degrees of latitude.
I actually couldn't find how much it deviates. I assume there's variation depending on the seasons as well.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession
Magnetic poles changing is not relevant it seems.
I'm kinda glad I tried to explain this, because I realize just how much I lack the proper words for it.
The earth rotation wobbles a bit, but the axis itself is also not tilted towards the sun (it has no specific reason to) nor tilted towards the inside of the revolution axis relative to the sun.
Basically the earth can be spinning on itself around any axis (let's call it A), while revolving around the sun on an unrelated axis (B). And neither A nor B has to be following the North/South axis. That's where the idea that a latitudinal timezone sees a similar solar cycle seems at odds to me.
If an image can help more, the earth's self rotation and sun revolution in this video are clearly not aligned, nor any of them follow the North/South axis: https://www.britannica.com/video/151528/Earth-rotation-axis-...
We already have to do that: every business and government office (including schools) has their own hours (and holidays); even in the same city, people are not waking (or going to sleep) at a uniform time.
Time zones are a 19th century solution to a 19th century problem.