What time is it a mile east of me.

Okay, I know the official time is the same time as me. But if we were to do the math, what time would it be a mile east of me if it were exactly 12pm?

What lattitude?

If I understand your question properly, the answer is going to depend quite a bit on your latitude. At / near the South Pole, one mile east is going to be quite a few time zones away. At the equator, not so much.

ETA: ninja’d, but I want extra credit for spelling latitude correctly. :wink:

Wouldn’t that depend on your latitude? Time, in the sense you’re asking, is a function of the angle of arc you subtend on the surface of the globe, so 1 mile at thee equator would be different than one mile at, say, 45[sup]o[/sup] north.

I blame my phone. It should have caught my idiocy.

I didn’t even think about latitude.

I live in Dallas, but if using the equator makes it easier, we can go with that.

Yes, it depends on your latitude. At the equator, the earth’s circumference is not too far from 25000 miles. So there, one mile is roughly 1/1000 of an hour, so about 4 seconds. At 45 degrees, it’s close to 17,500 miles. One mile would be about 1/750 of an hour, so about 5 seconds.

What is your latitude? It is 4 minutes later for each degree of longitude. At the equator, a degree is approximately 25,000/360, nearly 70 miles. It comes to about 3.5 sec. But if you are at 45 degrees latitude, the length of a circle at the latitude is not 25,000 miles, but only the square root of 2 (cos 45) times that so that one mile east is nearly 5 seconds. Other latitudes will give other answers.

You guys are great.

Thanks.

The circumference of the Earth at the Equator is 24,901 miles. Since there are 86,400 seconds in a day, it will be 3.47 seconds later by sun time one mile east of you if you are on the Equator.

ETA: Ninja’d, but I gave more decimal places.:wink:

Running the numbers for Dallas, I get 4.1 seconds, which seems about right, so hopefully I didn’t do anything silly in the calculation.

Why do you want to know what time it is in Mesquite? :wink:

Fun fact: If you’re at 89° 59’ 51.745’’ N (give or take a few feet of latitude), then the time a mile east of you is … the same as the time where you are.

Well, it was fun for me.

What time is it, Yogi?

Yogi Berra: You mean now?

Moe: Shemp, what does your watch say?

Shemp: Nothing, you got to look at it.

Tom Scott’s take on a similar question.

You’re calculation must allow some latitude for the distance you are from the equator.

Thanks for the answers guys.

So just to wrap my mind around this. Is a guy sitting at the equator spinning around on the planet faster than a guy siting in Alaska?

If we want to nitpick, altitude affects the equation also because of gravitational time dilation. Hey, a millionth of a second here, a millionth of a second there; it adds up.

In relation to what?