What time is it on the north pole? I mean, suppose I lived in Texas and I traveled straight north until I reached the north pole. I would look at my watch and determine what time I had arrived. But suppose just as I was mouthing the words, someone from New York arrived and said it was one hour later. And then I spin around and notice someone from California checking her watch, and she says it’s two hours earlier. And then, because in hypotheticals like this anything is possible, someone from each of the 21 other time zones comes trudging up peering intently at his or her watch. Naturally, an argument ensues, but the results are inconclusive, basically on account of its being conducted in several languages. Who is right? –Ray A. Balestri, Dallas
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Why, I am, Ray. I’m surprised you have to ask. Glad to get the north-pole situation cleared up, in any event, what with the S. Claus situation and all. As you rightly observe, polar timekeeping is a little weird, one of many anomalies arising from the imposition of a Cartesian coordinate system on a spherical surface (and how’s that for slinging the ten-dollar terminology?). Polar joke: The winds at the south pole are very consistent–they’re always out of the north! OK, so maybe it didn’t make you spit out your soup, but they tell me it got big laughs at a recent colloquium of OAE’s–Old Antarctic Explorers, as they coyly call themselves.
