Soon after, John Flamsteed was appointed as the first Astronomer Royal and moved into the new Royal Observatory. Highly acclaimed British architect, Christopher Wren was commissioned to design the domed building. In 1675, King Charles II offered the land to The Royal Society for Britain’s first national observatory. Greenwich was a royal park and palace on a hill to the south of the River Thames east of London, England. It wasn’t until the invention of the pendulum clock in the 1650s that it was possible to work out the relationship between mean (clock) time and solar time.īritish astronomer, John Flamsteed came up with the formula for converting solar time to mean time, and published a set of conversion tables in the early 1670s. GMT was originally set up to aid naval navigation when travel around the globe started to open up with the exploration of the “New World” (America) during the 16th century. It’s a way to standardize time so we can all know exactly what time it is for any location. If you own a sundial for instance, you’re aware that “noon” based on the position of the Sun can differ by as much as plus or minus 15 minutes from what a clock may read.īut each day measured by a clock has the same length, equal to the average (mean) length of a solar day. It differs from solar or astronomical time clock time because solar time varies throughout the year. In essence, “mean time” is what you would read off of a clock. In military GMT is known as Zulu time.Greenwich Mean Time was the same as Universal Time (UT), until the introduction of UTC in 1972 a standard astronomical concept used in many technical fields.You’ve heard of Daylight Saving Time, Standard Time, Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific Time, but have you heard of the term Greenwich Mean Time, sometimes referred to simply as GMT, or Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), and wondered what the heck it is? It is now often used to refer to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) when this is viewed as a time zone, and in casual use for the most parts it is the same. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) originally referred to the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. Other major cities in the area are Abidjan, Dakar, Grand Dakar, Accra Principal Cities: The largest city in the GMT timezone is London from United Kingdom with population about 7.557 million people. Offset: GMT is 0 hours ahead Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and is used in EuropeĬountries: It is used in following countries: Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Britain (UK), Guernsey, Ghana, Greenland, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ireland, Isle of Man, Iceland, Jersey, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, St Helena, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Sao Tome & Principe, Togo Offset UTC 0:00 hoursġ2:30 pm 12:30 Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). Offset UTC 0:00 hoursĤ:30 pm 16:30 Universal Time Coordinated (UTC). Greenwich Mean Time is 0 hours ahead of Universal Time Coordinated and 4 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight TimeĤ:30 pm 16:30 in GMT is 4:30 pm 16:30 in UTC and is 12:30 pm 12:30 in EDTīest time for a conference call or a meeting is between 8am-6pm in GMT which corresponds to 8am-6pm in UTCīest time for a conference call or a meeting is between 1pm-6pm in GMT which corresponds to 8am-1pm in ESTĤ:30 pm 16:30 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |