International Date Line

[Doc]

I was looking at the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific and saw the International Date line. I see a weird quirk in the IDL and have to wonder why it's like that.
See pic. At the equator it juts all around, no land to go around, no islands in sight. Any ideas why it does this?

 

[EastTexFrank]

Cartographer with a sense of humor??????

Cartographer sneezed while drawing it????

Hell, I don't know!

 

[pixie]

I think there are islands there but not shown.

Kiribati - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Doc]

Good call Pixie. I thought I saw a dot there and zoomed in on google maps but it did not expand. Kiribati is there. 119,000 live there. And it consists of 32 islands. They must've insisted on being the first to see each new day. Thanks Pixie. I had never heard of Kirbati until today.

 

[Lenny]

It is weird and I've seen it before. Pixie has a good point too.

I wonder how many things in history need to be questioned.

 

[chowderman]

the International Date wiggles around stuff - it's strictly an artificial 'arrangement.'
in this case the island nation(s) are more aligned with things to the west than things to the east - and wished to be "in the same day" as the places in the west they dealt with.....

for 35 years I dealt with USA vs European time issues - UK, central Europe and USA all did Daylight Savings Time shifts on different dates.... it was a nightmare to keep up with whether your contact is ahead, behind, somewhere in-between . . . . and every time a politician heaved his lunch, it changed....
I can only imagine adding "What day are you talking about?" into that mix.

 

[Doc]

Yeah, I imagine that would be crazy.
I didn't see any land there so I was baffled as to why. Now it is fairly obvious.

 

[Lenny]

I didn't see any land there so I was baffled as to why. Now it is fairly obvious.

Same here and when I zoomed in closer the date line when away so it was even more difficult to see if there were any islands or reasons for it.

 

[bczoom]

OK, here's a question.
A year is 365.25 days long. Every 4 years we have leap year to catch up on those (4) 1/4 days.
Until we reach leap year, where do those 6 hours/year (30 minutes/month, 1 minute/day) go? E.g. on the Summer Solstice for those 3 years is sunset and sunrise the exact time year-to-year?

 

[FrancSevin]

OK, here's a question.
A year is 365.25 days long. Every 4 years we have leap year to catch up on those (4) 1/4 days.
Until we reach leap year, where do those 6 hours/year (30 minutes/month, 1 minute/day) go? E.g. on the Summer Solstice for those 3 years is sunset and sunrise the exact time year-to-year?

I have the same question about DST vrs STD Time.
Each year, in spring, the gubmit takes an hour of sleep away from every citizen.
Every fall it gives that hour back.
But....;
Anyone who died during that period doesn't get their hour back.

WHERE DOES IT GO?