Time and trouble
When you move long distances you invariably pass through time zones. Now, time zones are artificial, but the reasons for them are real enough. For example New York is not really 4 hours ahead of San Francisco, but, since it is possible for it to be good and dark in New York and still light in Frisco they can’t both be at the same time. Railroads, both in England and America drove the point home that time needed to be standardized and then divided. In England, not an especially large country, the issue was getting everyone on the same clock so people did not leave Birmingham at noon and arrive in Leeds at 11:45am.
In the US, due to its vast size the need for large zones spanning multiple hours was made apparent by rail travel. The systems work hence the division of the globe into 24 rather oddly shaped zones. So now Muenster, Germany is 8 hours ahead of Phoenix, Arizona. Which of course makes sense, when it is 6pm and dark in Muenster, it is 10am and the day is beginning in Phoenix. Such a large gap makes contact between the two cities rather cumbersome as I am quickly discovering. Nevertheless, no point in blaming time zones, they are just the messengers.
Only those small islands in the Pacific clustered around the International Date Line really have a gripe about Time zones themselves. The distance between Samoa and Fiji is about 600 miles, a short flight but the time difference is 23 hours due to the stretch of ocean between them being cut in half by the date line. In this case it is of course absurd to insist that Fiji and Samoa are really that far apart in time. The phenomenon is little more than a seam on the baseball of the world.
For further reading on the history of Time zones, the Wiki is quite good. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone
For a map of world time zones, please click here: Map of time zones
