2009 Momentum - Glashütte Original

UTC + 0 | Greenwich
The mother of all time measurement:
Greenwich Mean Time, later
replaced by Coordinated Universal
Time (UTC)
tant centres, Shanghai and Beijing. This means that in the far east
of China, solar noon – when the sun reaches its zenith – actually
happens at 11 a.m. and does not come to the westernmost parts
of the country until 3 p.m.
The example of China demonstrates aptly that time
zones are often designated for purely political or economic reasons.
Nepal, for example, likes to distinguish itself from in its giant
neighbour India, and thus its clocks are a quarter of an hour
ahead. In 2007 Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez put the clocks
back half an hour, partly to better reflect the country’s geographical
location, but also to differentiate Venezuela from the rest of
the continent. Time-zone hopping has also become popular:
many countries put their clocks forward by an hour in spring and
back again in autumn in order to save energy. Thus where the UK
has GMT and British Summer Time, most of the rest of Europe has
Central European Time (CET) and Central European Summer
Time (CEST). The fact that a large area of Europe shares a single
time means that Vardø in the extreme northeast of Norway experiences
its solar noon at 10:53 CET while in Cape Finisterre in
north-western Spain the sun doesn’t reach its zenith until 13:37
CET. In Portugal, on the westernmost reaches of Europe, children
UTC -8 | Los Angeles
Wannabe movie stars arriving in
Hollywood from London have to put
their watches back eight hours
UTC - 1 | Greenland
Don’t forget to wrap up warmly in
eastern Greenland – and set your
watch back by an hour
UTC -9 | Alaska
No, the hands of your watch haven’t
frozen – they’re just nine hours behind
London time
UTC -2 | On the Atlantic
When yachting in the middle of the
Atlantic, you’ll have to adjust your
chronometer by two hours
UTC -3 | Rio de Janeiro
Brazil stretches across three time
zones. Rio, in the east of the country,
is three hours behind of UTC
were going to school in the dark even in the summer until the
country changed its time to match that of Ireland and the UK.
When the clocks went forward in Cuba in spring
2004 they stayed there – an energy crisis extended that year’s
summer time until autumn 2006. There were also serious economic
considerations behind Singapore’s decision to bring its clocks
in line with Hong Kong time; the stock exchanges of both cities
now open and close at the same time. A special solution had to
be found for Antarctica as it stretches over all 24 time zones. The
decision was made that UTC would apply across the entire continent.
UTC is the new name for what was formerly known as
Greenwich Mean Time. Unlike GMT, it is an atomic timescale –
measured by atomic clocks as opposed to astronomical calculations.
It is used across the world for navigating by air and sea, in
scientific experiments, in amateur radio, on many internet portals
and in e-mails. Even the clocks on the International Space Station
(ISS) are set according to UTC. The ISS takes 91 minutes to orbit
the earth – that’s an incredible 17,400 mph. And that, my dear
young friend from Boston, is a much greater speed than even the
swiftest jet aircraft could ever hope to achieve. ✺
UTC -10 | Hawaii
Aloha and welcome to Hawaii!
Please put your watch back ten
hours
UTC -11 | Samoa
Appearances can be deceptive. The
inhabitants of these idyllic isles
love the rough and tumble of rugby
– but kickoff is eleven hours earlier
Momentum 1· 2009
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