Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff Lauren vog obamb here. The time zones
Speaker 1: are headache fuel, even if you're not moving rapidly through
Speaker 1: them yourself, which is a great way to screw up
Speaker 1: your sleep schedule. Just trying to schedule phone calls between
Speaker 1: them can cause all sorts of trouble. Time zones also
Speaker 1: have political quirks here and there. The continental United States
Speaker 1: is split into four recognized time zones, yet China, which
Speaker 1: is around the same size, just has one. Still, that's
Speaker 1: not to say that the layout of Earth's time zones
Speaker 1: is totally random. By international custom, our planet is divided
Speaker 1: into a series of longitudinal lines that run from the
Speaker 1: north pole all the way down to the South pole.
Speaker 1: These form convenient boundaries for the twenty four widely used
Speaker 1: time zones. Since those lines converge in to a single
Speaker 1: point at each of the two poles, what does that
Speaker 1: mean for the poles? If you're physically standing at the
Speaker 1: South pole or chillan at the North pole, then what's
Speaker 1: the local time? First, let's clarify what we mean by
Speaker 1: the poles. Earth has a magnetic north and South pole.
Speaker 1: They drift based on what's going on with their planet's
Speaker 1: magnetic field. But they're generally situated somewhere in the Arctic
Speaker 1: and somewhere in the Antarctic. Compasses point toward the magnetic
Speaker 1: north Pole, but these spots have nothing to do with
Speaker 1: longitude lines. The geographic north Pole, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: is a singular place, the counterpart to the geographic South Pole.
Speaker 1: These two spots are where Earth's outer surface intersects with
Speaker 1: its axis of rotation. Due to the tilt of the
Speaker 1: Earth's axis, each only has one sunrise and one sunset
Speaker 1: per year. It's six months of light followed by six
Speaker 1: months of darkness, so time is a little meaningless there anyway.
Speaker 1: But it's also where the world's longitudinal lines overlap, which
Speaker 1: brings us back to the time zone issue. It doesn't
Speaker 1: generally matter what time it is at the geographic North
Speaker 1: Pole because nobody lives there. There are no permanent structures
Speaker 1: at the geographic north Pole because it's located in the
Speaker 1: Arctic Ocean. Ships passing through these waters can pick their
Speaker 1: own time zone. Sometimes vessels sink themselves up with the
Speaker 1: time zone observed in a given country or city farther south.
Speaker 1: Often the one nearest to them at that moment, but
Speaker 1: it's up to them. In twenty a North Pole expedition
Speaker 1: crew aboard a ship named the Polar Stern lodged themselves
Speaker 1: in an ice flow to conduct research and changed their
Speaker 1: time zone once a week. Things are a little different
Speaker 1: in Antarctica. The South Pole lies above solid ground, and
Speaker 1: so do the continent's many research stations. Each one usually
Speaker 1: sticks to a predesignated time zone from some other spot
Speaker 1: on the globe, maybe from the country that has territorial
Speaker 1: claim to that part of the continent, or the country
Speaker 1: that owns the station, or the country that houses their
Speaker 1: supply base. However, researchers from a particular country may choose
Speaker 1: to operate on their hometime, just to make scheduling those
Speaker 1: calls a little easier. Today's episode is based on the
Speaker 1: article why don't the North and South Poles have time zones?
Speaker 1: On how stuff Works dot Com, written by Mark Mancini.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot Com, and it is produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the
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