What time is it

[Captain Caveman]

The earth is split up into 24 time zones, each being 15 degrees, and 1 hour apart. As you get closer to the North Pole, the time zones get narrower

At the North Pole all the time zones converge to a single point. What time is it at that single point?

 

[Concerned American]

The earth is split up into 24 time zones, each being 15 degrees, and 1 hour apart. As you get closer to the North Pole, the time zones get narrower

At the North Pole all the time zones converge to a single point. What time is it at that single point?

The time at the international date line. That is where the day begins and ends and even if you face that latitude and do not move, it will still take 24 hours to make one rotation.

 

[toobfreak]

The earth is split up into 24 time zones, each being 15 degrees, and 1 hour apart. As you get closer to the North Pole, the time zones get narrower
At the North Pole all the time zones converge to a single point. What time is it at that single point?

Geesh, being that you are in England, I'd think you would know that the default time is GMT, based on the time at the Greenwich Observatory right there in England. All time is calculated from that meridian. It defines the IDL (standard time) and every time zone is calculated by how many hours ahead or behind Greenwich they are. For instance, the east coast of the USA is -5 hours GMT, so that when it is midnight the next day in Greenwich, it is still only 7PM on the East Coast.

Of course, this also depends whether you are on EST or EDT (daylight savings).

But I hardly think this is much of a concern as there is no land nor people at the geographic north pole and the south pole is barren as the coldest place on Earth typically around -60 or -80°F, so a sailor might only have this problem for a few minutes at the north pole and at the south pole, you'd have to stand on one foot in 50 mph blowing wind at -80°F.

If I were you, I'd be far more concerned why compasses don't work at the poles.

 

[ozro]

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

At the North Pole all the time zones converge to a single point. What time is it at that single point?

Hah!

This is a koan.

The question is meaningless.

 

[scruffy]

The earth is split up into 24 time zones, each being 15 degrees, and 1 hour apart. As you get closer to the North Pole, the time zones get narrower

At the North Pole all the time zones converge to a single point. What time is it at that single point?

Well, from a purely mathematical standpoint, the correct answer is "undefined".

This is because of a famous theorem called the "Hairy Ball Theorem".

It says you can't comb the hair on a sphere, without creating a cowlick.

That particular point has "no orientation", even relative to the IDL.

However the government officials don't know about math, so they just declare it to be whatever they want. (Which is kind of like legislating the value of Pi, but there we go).

There's some clever ways around this when you consider that the sphere is embedded in 3-space. For instance you can have the hair at that point stand straight up, which gives you what's known as a fiber. And then you can map the fiber back to the point, which in theory gives you a vanishingly small location whose measure is 0 in the limit. It's still discontinuous though - so what the physics types do is compactify the mapping by simply adding a point. Done this way it equates with a "point at infinity" (so far away you can't really define it), which makes your division by zero work. It's kind of a gimmick but it lets do you do math without resorting to even more drastic gimmicks.

Hairy ball theorem - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[luiza]

At the North Pole all the time zones converge to a single point. What time is it at that single point?

Time for a hot drink .

Nobody below Top Secret clearance ever gets to the south pole .
Banned .
And it is a no fly zone .

 

[Captain Caveman]

Well, from a purely mathematical standpoint, the correct answer is "undefined".

This is because of a famous theorem called the "Hairy Ball Theorem".

It says you can't comb the hair on a sphere, without creating a cowlick.

That particular point has "no orientation", even relative to the IDL.

However the government officials don't know about math, so they just declare it to be whatever they want. (Which is kind of like legislating the value of Pi, but there we go).

There's some clever ways around this when you consider that the sphere is embedded in 3-space. For instance you can have the hair at that point stand straight up, which gives you what's known as a fiber. And then you can map the fiber back to the point, which in theory gives you a vanishingly small location whose measure is 0 in the limit. It's still discontinuous though - so what the physics types do is compactify the mapping by simply adding a point. Done this way it equates with a "point at infinity" (so far away you can't really define it), which makes your division by zero work. It's kind of a gimmick but it lets do you do math without resorting to even more drastic gimmicks.

Hairy ball theorem - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Correct answer scruffy, bonus points to you, it's undefined.



Concerned American
toobfreak
ozro
Fort Fun Indiana
luiza

 

[SeaMajor7]

Peanut-butter-jelly-time!!!

 

[toobfreak]

Correct answer scruffy, bonus points to you, it's undefined.

Actually, the answer remains undefined only because the question itself is undefined. You see, the real question resides on the boundary walls between the time zones. Theoretically as you posed the question, it is impossible to not be in one time zone or the other no matter how close you get to the pole, the pole itself an undefined location because no one can identify the exact location of a pole, then there is the matter of what boundary size you allocate between the zones.

Assuming an infinitely thin boundary, then you must assume an infinitely small point where you are at the true pole where all zones meet without being in any one zone itself, so, what? The size of an atom? A quark?

So the question becomes meaningless because the answer can never be defined, but hypothetically, if you could be at the exact pole with no part of you intersecting any given time zone, a geometic and mathematical impossibility, you would be forever fixed at Standard Time which is forever the boundary between midnight and the next day for the entire planet, so you would be without diurnal time, your time being merely a function of the seasonal annual rotation of the Earth about the Sun as a function of the seasonal inclination of the ecliptic.

 

[Nobody911]

The earth is split up into 24 time zones, each being 15 degrees, and 1 hour apart. As you get closer to the North Pole, the time zones get narrower

At the North Pole all the time zones converge to a single point. What time is it at that single point?

At both the North and South Poles, all time zones converge at a single point, meaning theoretically, you could experience multiple time zones simultaneously. However, there is no official time established for either pole. Instead, researchers and visitors typically use the time zone of the location they are coming from or the time zone of their home base.

For example, when scientists work at the South Pole Station, which is run by the United States, they often use New Zealand Time (NZT) because that’s where the majority of their supplies are flown in from. Conversely, some expeditions at the North Pole might use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) for consistency. In practice, the concept of time at the poles is flexible. Since the poles experience extreme variations in daylight—24 hours of daylight in summer and 24 hours of darkness in winter—timekeeping becomes somewhat arbitrary.

The phenomenon of 24 hours of daylight in summer and 24 hours of darkness in winter at the poles is primarily due to the tilt of the Earth's axis. The Earth is tilted at an angle of about 23.5 degrees relative to its orbital plane around the Sun. This tilt causes different parts of the Earth to receive varying amounts of sunlight throughout the year.

During the summer solstice (around June 21), the North Pole is tilted towards the Sun, resulting in continuous daylight for the Arctic region. Conversely, during the winter solstice (around December 21), the North Pole is tilted away from the Sun, leading to a period of complete darkness. This effect is more pronounced at the poles than at lower latitudes because the angle of sunlight striking the surface becomes increasingly shallow as one approaches the poles.

In the Arctic, this results in the Sun never setting for an extended period in summer and never rising in winter. As a result, traditional timekeeping becomes less relevant in these regions, as conventional day-night cycles do not apply. Instead, local inhabitants and researchers often use alternative methods to manage their schedules, relying on other cues or standardized time zones.

So, while you can pinpoint a "time" at the poles based on your preference or operational needs, there is no single time that governs that area.

 

[toobfreak]

However, there is no official time established for either pole.

How can there be? Time is based on which time zone you are in, and the exact pole has no time zone. It is the point where they all meet. Therefore, it is fixed eternally at Standard Time which is midnight between the old day and the new day.