Out of all peculiar, curiosity arousing things in the world, time zones are an interesting phenomenon that attracts many. Yes, the world is divided into many different time zones like when its morning in Chicago, it is evening in London. It shows that every place on the earth has its own time measuring system. Quite interesting, but travelling from one place to another can be confusing.
The reason behind the different time zones throughout the world is rotation of the earth. With earth rotating continuously, you can never imagine a world with same time zone. In this case if only one time zone existed, it will be noon at some place, it may be morning or may be night at other different places, as every place may not get the same amount of sunlight.
To stop this crazy confusion, 1800 scientists found out a way to divide the world in many different time zones. As earth rotates completely on its axis and it moves 15 degree in 60 minutes, so in 24 hours it rotates a complete 360 degrees. Using that information, the scientists divided the time zones into 24 different zones with 15 degree latitude.
The distance between the zones is largest in the equator but shrinks to zero on moving towards poles. They used imaginary longitudinal lines known as meridians running between North Poles and South Poles. The starting point is called as Greenwich, a London suburb area and the line running through the Greenwich is called the prime meridian. As you move every 15 degree in the west of Greenwich, which is a time interval of one hour, then you are one hour earlier than the Greenwich Mean Time or (GMT) and in the same way 15 degree east is one hour later the Greenwich Mean Time. For example, if the GMT is at noon, then 15 degree west is 11 am and 15 degree east is 1 pm.
