Standard time is the result of synchronizing clocks in different geographical locations within a time zone to the same time rather than using the local meridian as in local mean time or solar time. Historically, this helped in the process of weather forecasting and train travel. The concept became established in the late 19th century. The time so set has come to be defined in terms of offsets from Universal Time. Where daylight saving time is used, the term standard time typically refers to the time without the offset for daylight saving time.
The adoption of Standard Time, because of the inseparable correspondence between time and longitude, solidified the concepts of halving the globe into an eastern and western hemisphere, with one Prime Meridian (as well its opposite International Dateline) replacing the various Prime Meridians that were in use.
Famous quotes containing the words standard and/or time:
“A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“And since the average lifetime—the relative longevity—is far greater for memories of poetic sensations than for those of heartbreaks, since the very long time that the grief I felt then because of Gilbert, it has been outlived by the pleasure I feel, whenever I wish to read, as in a sort of sundial, the minutes between twelve fifteen and one o’clock, in the month of May, upon remembering myself chatting ... with Madame Swann under the reflection of a cradle of wisteria.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)