Question

Earth is divided into how many time zones?
A. 36
B. 14
C. 12
D. 24

Answer 1

Hint: Only France has the exact half number of time zones. The earth rotates 15 degrees in an hour and the earth rotates 360 degrees in total. This number plays an important role in determining time zones. Also, the longitude and latitude lines play an important role in determining time zones.

Complete step by step answer:
A region of the globe that observes a uniform standard time is called a time zone. This is done for legal, commercial, and social purposes. With a total of 12, France including its overseas territories has the most time zones. Quirico Filopanti was the first person to conceive a worldwide system of time zones. In his book, Miranda introduced this idea that was published in 1858. In 1879 Sir Sandford Fleming proposed a worldwide system of time zones. In about 24 hours the earth rotates 360 degrees, which means 15 degrees in an hour. Therefore, when it is noon at Greenwich, the time at 15 degrees east of Greenwich will be 60 minutes ( 15×4). So, the time would be one hour ahead of Greenwich time and at 15 degrees west the time would be one hour behind Greenwich time. The local time at the longitude which passes through the middle of the country is considered as the standard time in the country. With keeping global level businesses in mind, similarities between the standard time of various countries is a must. To ease this, the world has been divided into 24 time zones.
So, the correct answer is Option D.

Note: The efforts of Sandford Fleming has led to the adoption of the present time meridians. Today, all nations, for secular purposes, use standard time zones and they do not apply the original concept that was conceived.