Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey brain Stuff Lauren vog obamb here. The time zones are headache fuel, even if you're not moving rapidly through them yourself, which is a great way to screw up your sleep schedule. Just trying to schedule phone calls between them can cause all sorts of trouble. Time zones also have political quirks here and there. The continental United States is split into four recognized time zones, yet China, which
is around the same size, just has one. Still, that's not to say that the layout of Earth's time zones is totally random. By international custom, our planet is divided into a series of longitudinal lines that run from the north pole all the way down to the South pole. These form convenient boundaries for the twenty four widely used time zones. Since those lines converge in to a single point at each of the two poles, what does that
mean for the poles? If you're physically standing at the South pole or chillan at the North pole, then what's the local time? First, let's clarify what we mean by the poles. Earth has a magnetic north and South pole. They drift based on what's going on with their planet's magnetic field. But they're generally situated somewhere in the Arctic and somewhere in the Antarctic. Compasses point toward the magnetic north Pole, but these spots have nothing to do with
longitude lines. The geographic north Pole, on the other hand, is a singular place, the counterpart to the geographic South Pole. These two spots are where Earth's outer surface intersects with its axis of rotation. Due to the tilt of the Earth's axis, each only has one sunrise and one sunset per year. It's six months of light followed by six months of darkness, so time is a little meaningless there anyway. But it's also where the world's longitudinal lines overlap, which
brings us back to the time zone issue. It doesn't generally matter what time it is at the geographic North Pole because nobody lives there. There are no permanent structures at the geographic north Pole because it's located in the Arctic Ocean. Ships passing through these waters can pick their own time zone. Sometimes vessels sink themselves up with the time zone observed in a given country or city farther south. Often the one nearest to them at that moment, but
it's up to them. In twenty a North Pole expedition crew aboard a ship named the Polar Stern lodged themselves in an ice flow to conduct research and changed their time zone once a week. Things are a little different in Antarctica. The South Pole lies above solid ground, and
so do the continent's many research stations. Each one usually sticks to a predesignated time zone from some other spot on the globe, maybe from the country that has territorial claim to that part of the continent, or the country that owns the station, or the country that houses their supply base. However, researchers from a particular country may choose to operate on their hometime, just to make scheduling those
calls a little easier. Today's episode is based on the article why don't the North and South Poles have time zones? On how stuff Works dot Com, written by Mark Mancini. Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com, and it is produced by Tyler Clang. For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.