Time
In most places on Earth, local time is determined by longitude, such that the time of day is more-or-less synchronised to the position of the sun in the sky (for example, at midday the sun is roughly at its highest). This line of reasoning fails at the South Pole, where the sun rises and sets only once per year, and all lines of longitude, and hence all time zones, converge. There is no a priori reason for placing the South Pole in any particular time zone, but as a matter of practical convenience the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station keeps New Zealand Time. This is because the US flies its resupply missions ("Operation Deep Freeze") out of McMurdo Station which is supplied from Christchurch, New Zealand.
Read more about this topic: South Pole
Famous quotes containing the word time:
“Everyone nowadays lives through too much and thinks through too little: they have a ravenous appetite and colic at the same time so that they keep getting thinner and thinner no matter how much they eat.—Whoever says nowadays, “I have not experienced anything”—is a simpleton.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Man is always more than he can know of himself; consequently, his accomplishments, time and again, will come as a surprise to him.”
—Golo Mann (b. 1909)
“Life is so short that it is not wise to take roundabout ways, nor can we spend much time in waiting.... We have not got half-way to dawn yet.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)