What if the whole planet ran on a single clock?
What if the whole planet ran on a single clock? Ellsworth Toohey 6:00 am Fri Jul 24, 2026 abolish time zones — UnaitxuGV, Heitordp and others / Public domain (via Wikipedia) Every so often someone proposes to abolish time zones entirely and put the whole planet on a single clock. It would be the same time everywhere at once: when it reads 08:00 in London, it reads 08:00 in New York and Beijing too — even though New York's sky would look the way it usually does at 3 a.m., and China's like late afternoon.
- ▪What if the whole planet ran on a single clock?
- ▪Ellsworth Toohey 6:00 am Fri Jul 24, 2026 abolish time zones — UnaitxuGV, Heitordp and others / Public domain (via Wikipedia) Every so often someone proposes to abolish time zones entirely and put the whole planet on a single clock.
- ▪It would be the same time everywhere at once: when it reads 08:00 in London, it reads 08:00 in New York and Beijing too — even though New York's sky would look the way it usually does at 3 a.m., and China's like late afternoon.
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What if the whole planet ran on a single clock? Ellsworth Toohey 6:00 am Fri Jul 24, 2026 abolish time zones — UnaitxuGV, Heitordp and others / Public domain (via Wikipedia) Every so often someone proposes to abolish time zones entirely and put the whole planet on a single clock. It would be the same time everywhere at once: when it reads 08:00 in London, it reads 08:00 in New York and Beijing too — even though New York's sky would look the way it usually does at 3 a.m., and China's like late afternoon. It sounds radical, but much of the world already runs this way. Airlines, militaries, the International Space Station, and agencies like NOAA all coordinate on one global clock, UTC, because doing arithmetic between zones is exactly the mistake you don't want in aviation or a spacewalk.
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