Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 07/17/2008 - 09:12
Forums
Kuril Islands Biocomplexity 08

Dear Dr. Etnier,

I know you traveled past the international date line but what time is it there?Undecided

Nathan Gill

Sat, 07/19/2008 - 06:03

KBP Team

It's pretty tricky trying to keep track of the time differences between here (the Kuril Islands) and the rest of the world. One of the tricks I use is that I don't change the time on my laptop computer, which is still set on Bellingham, WA, time. So all I have to do is check in the bottom right corner of my screen and it will tell me what time it is back home. That works fine as long as I know what time it is here! I also have a wrist watch that two time settings-one for here, and one for home. So I'm all set.
But if you don't have those two options, you're left with math. There are two ways you can think about the math of the time differences.
First, you can think of Bellingham as being 18 hours behind the Kurils.
So, for instance, as I'm writing this post, it is 4:20 pm on Friday, July 18th. If we scroll the clock back 18 hours, that gets us to 10:20 pm on Thursday, July 17th.
Now, you can get tricky with this, too, and try to remember it likethis: add 6 hours to Kurils time and then subtract a day. You should get the same answer!
Betchya didn't expect to hear so much about writing and math when you posted those questions, did you!
-- Dr E.