‘Time’ - A discussion by two geniuses

Let’s begin with an interesting and crazy trivia about time. Check how good is your knowledge on distance and time zones.

1) India (Delhi) and U.S. (Washington D.C.) are 7442 miles away resulting in 10.5 hrs time difference.
2) U.S. (Washington D.C.) and Australia (Canberra) are 10000 miles making Australia ahead by 18hrs.
3) Midway Island (Samoa) is behind Nuku’alofa (Tonga) by 24hrs. How far are they?

a) 15000 miles
b) 13000 miles
c) 550 miles
d) 0 miles

Answer: Read on...

We live in a crazy world. I know everyone would have said this so many times in our mechanical day to day life but this time I say it because of ‘time zones’. Read on and I believe at the end you will agree to what I said – “We live in a Crazy World”.

One fine Saturday night @ 1.30, my roomie and I were watching the cricket match between India and England. There was a football match scheduled on the same day between two clubs at 6.30 P.M. in Yokohama, Japan. So he asked me to check what time it would be in US (CST) when it is 6.30 in Yokohama. I was checking it when he threw the question at me which started all this discussion about time zones.


Here is the question - “Will there be 24hrs time difference between two places in earth?” I thought for a moment and said “As far as I know, Australia is ahead of US by 18hrs but there could be. Let’s check it”. Then, I opened the time settings in my laptop and checked the time zones. I shouted -‘Eureka’ (Greek and Latin is the language of ‘Genius’) it’s there, two time zones with 24hrs difference.

Yep, as said already in the trivia, it’s Midway Island (Samoa) and Nuku’alofa (Tonga). Then there was a question again. How far are these two places from Greenwich (GMT)? We were so good in geography that we believed Greenwich is in Greenland until google said it is in England.

Google is like the ‘Genie’ in Aladdin’s hand. It gives you whatever is needed in a single click of the mouse. We opened Google maps to see where these places are. Tonga is next to Fiji islands in the Pacific Ocean and Samoa lying closer to Hawaii is a territory of U.S. So, we came to conclusion that all the places located to the right of Greenwich are GMT+ and places to the left are GMT-.
Everything was going fine until somebody hit us in our head and said “World is a sphere. How many times should I have to say this?” It’s Galileo, another Genius like us, who was sitting behind and listening to our conversation.

Oops, that’s right, world is a sphere but what difference could that make? That is the key factor which makes time zones crazy. If world is a sphere, the extreme GMT- and extreme GMT+ should be closer to each other since the time zone is calculated from centre of the earth. Again my roomie asked “how far these two places will be?” We googled it again and to our surprise, they are just 550 miles away. Yes, both these islands are in Pacific Ocean with just an hour flight travel distance. Crazy isn’t it? If this isn’t crazy enough, read on…

Scroll up and read the trivia now again remembering the fact both these places are just 550 miles apart. For 7442 miles - 10.5 hrs difference, 10000 miles - 18 hrs and for just 550 miles its 24 hrs difference. Crazy…

We thought of few confusing incidents that could happen to the people living in these places. Here they come to puzzle you…

1) If someone travels from Tonga to Samoa on 26th Dec 10.00 AM @ 550 mi/hr (average speed of a flight), he will reach Samoa by 11.00 AM on 25th Dec. The time difference is -23hrs. Did he travel in time machine? What will happen to the equation ‘speed = distance/time’?

2) If someone’s birthday is on 26th Dec, he travels from Samoa on 25th night 11.30 P.M., he will reach Tonga by 27th night 00.30 Will he not grow a year old because he never had a birthday in that year?

3) Similar case, if someone’s birthday is on 26th Dec, he travels to Samoa from Tonga on 26th night 11.30 P.M., he will reach there on 26th night 00.30. Will he grow two years old since he had two birthdays?

4) How do Samoa newspapers report about the New Year celebration in Tonga? Here it is…

Published on Dec 31, 2008 – Midway Island, Samoa
Tonga (Jan 1): Yesterday night, the new year was celebrated on the country’s capital Nuku’alofa grandly. The President greeted country a prosperous and happy new year...
News is published on Dec 31 about New Year celebration of an island that is just 550 miles away. It sounds like a prediction rather than news to me. Do you agree?

While this discussion was going on and on, we heard a voice around the room. It said “There are only two geniuses in the world now. One is your roomie and the other is you”. After a brief search, we found the owner of the voice. It’s Einstein, one of our kind, genius of the past century. Even Einstein agreed. Hope you too agree the fact :-)

Wanna become genius? Think of any confusing instances like the above and post it. We will think on adding you to our club based on your situations. Gear up, Your time starts now...