The Discovery of the Time Difference

Photo by Jon Tyson

When you are in Europe, you know you can’t call the USA in the morning, because over there at that time, everyone is still asleep. Or, when you arrive in Taipei after a long flight, you also know you need to adjust your watch. We all know this and its cause: the time difference. But it was not always so evident in history. The time difference theory came from the combination of astronomical observations and geographic measurements. Who was the first to calculate this? Was it the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians, the Iranians, the Romans, or the Greeks? The answer is none of them!