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A mess of times

Until the late 1800s, the world was a jumble of times. Countries, cities, and even neighboring towns were using their own local time,

setting their clocks to noon when the Sun was directly overhead. Four o'clock in one city could be seven minutes past four in a town a short distance away. As travel, industry, and communication began to grow, it was decided there should be a standard time throughout the world.

In 1884 the world was officially divided into twenty-four time zones, like twenty-four segments of an orange. There was one zone for each hour of the day, and the time within each zone was the same. The starting point for the time zones was an imaginary north-south line that ran through Greenwich, England. The east-west distance around the world from this imaginary line determined each area's time zone. This system of time is called Greenwich Mean...

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1. Introduction
2. Breaking up time
3. Swing time
4. A mess of times
5. Space-time: It's all relative
6. Atomic time
7. Experiment 1 - Pendulums: How do the length, weight, and swing angle of a pendulum affect its oscillation time?
8. Experiment 2 - Water Clock: Does the amount of water in a water clock affect its accuracy?
9. Design Your Own Experiment