January 15, 2008

The Most Tenuous Relation to Philosophy

Yglesias asks why the time zones in Idaho, Washington, and Oregon don't correspond to the border between the states. I can testify that the INPC, which is held at Washington State and the University of Idaho (which are about five miles apart), would be a giant pain if the time zones were at the border. I remember being panicked that my hotel room in Washington would be an hour behind the sessions in Idaho and I'd miss a session.

My thoughts about daylight savings time in Indiana have nothing to do with philosophy, so you'll have to read them in Yglesias's comments.

(But here's another question -- why does the border between Mountain and Central time run down the middle of Nebraska? I mean, who cares if western Nebraska is on the wrong time zone? Nobody lives there. -- Though where the actual border is is even more deserted.

In fact, most of the time zone borders don't run cleanly along state borders -- looking at the map, UT-NV, TX-NM, and GA-AL are about the only ones, and even TX-NM is complicated by El Paso.)

[UPDATE: On further review, even GA-AL isn't so clear. I left out OK-CO and OK-NM, but as Gob Bluth would say, "Come on!"]

Posted by Matt Weiner at January 15, 2008 08:51 AM
Comments

In a lot of places it's by county, although this doesn't account for TX-NM. The weird thing about El Paso is that it's on Mountain time, like NM, but not only is the rest of Texas on Central time, so is Chihuahua.

Posted by: teofilo at January 16, 2008 04:47 PM

Hi Matt,

That's a strange question. It's wildly improbable that states would have created borders that happen to line up with time zones. It's not like you can just choose your time zone like you choose your borders. It would be great if we could though. Maybe have 25 hours in a day!

Posted by: Mike at February 1, 2008 05:50 AM

(But here's another question -- why does the border between Mountain and Central time run down the middle of Nebraska? I mean, who cares if western Nebraska is on the wrong time zone? Nobody lives there. -- Though where the actual border is is even more deserted.

But that's just it, isn't it? Because no one could care whether people in Eastern or Western Nebraska have the correct time, it seems the perfect place to draw the line.

Posted by: Clayton at February 1, 2008 08:18 AM

It's not like you can just choose your time zone like you choose your borders.

Sure you can -- at least, the US Department of Transportation determines time zones in the U.S. So they could

And Clayton, you have a point. And I guess people in the very western edge of Nebraska are more likely to go to Denver than to eastern Nebraska (though the nearest city above a certain very small size is probably North Platte, which is on Central time).

Posted by: Matt Weiner at February 2, 2008 06:49 PM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?