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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsInteresting article: "Time Has No Meaning at the North Pole"
The utter lack of time zones, daylight and people creates a bizarre worldBy Katie Weeman on March 13, 2020
In October 2019 the icebreaker RV Polarstern sat trapped in thick sea ice atop the central Arctic Oceanthe only landmark in a vast expanse of nothingness. Another icebreaker, the Akademik Fedorov, approached it slowly, hauling a load of supplies and personnel. Scientists and crew lined the balconies of each ship, gripping the ice-crusted banisters as they peered across the void. They could see the smiling faces of their colleagues just feet awaybut they were two time zones apart.
At the North Pole, 24 time zones collide at a single point, rendering them meaningless. Its simultaneously all of Earths time zones and none of them. There are no boundaries of any kind in this abyss, in part because there is no land and no people. The sun rises and sets just once per year, so time of day is irrelevant as well.
Yet there rests the Polarstern, deliberately locked in ice for a year to measure all aspects of that ice, the ocean beneath it and the sky above. The ship is filled with 100 people from 20 countries, drifting at the mercy of the ice floe, farther from civilization than the International Space Station. Ive been supporting communications for the mission remotely from landlocked Colorado, where time is stable. My world is a bewildering contrast to the alien one the ships scientists are living and working inwhere time functions and feels different than anywhere else on the planet.
No Time Zones
Since the expedition began last September, the Polarsterns time zone has shifted more than a dozen times. When the Akademik Fedorov and Polarstern parked side by side, they were still hours apart. But with no other people within hundreds of miles in all directions and with no cues from the permanently dark sky, the very concept of a time zone seemed meaningless.
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https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/time-has-no-meaning-at-the-north-pole
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Interesting article: "Time Has No Meaning at the North Pole" (Original Post)
catbyte
Mar 2020
OP
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)1. UTC, baby. Universal time coordinated. nt
dchill
(38,505 posts)2. "...farther...
...from civilization than the International Space Station."
Lots of food for thought!