FW: Question about: TWiki.org Service: Date and Time Gateway

[Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI)]

Neither Peter nor Krystian is on the time zone mailing list; direct replies
appropriately.

				--ado

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Thoeny [mailto:peter.thoeny at attglobal.net] 
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 6:23 PM
To: krystian at mindspring.com; tz at lecserver.nci.nih.gov
Subject: Re: Question about: TWiki.org Service: Date and Time Gateway

Dear Krystian and tz team,

The program on TWiki.org takes the data from the Olson tz database,
http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm

I am not sure I can explain the +/- GMT question, someone from the Olson tz
database team is probably better in that.

More info on GMT at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMT

Info on timezones at
http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/info/timezone.htm

Interstingly, above site shows GMT times in reverse to the Olson database!
E.g. for me in California, the Olson database tells me I am in Etc/GMT+8,
and greenwichmeantime.com tells me I am GMT-8.

Regards,
Confused Peter


krystian at mindspring.com wrote:
> 
> This question pertains to the data within:
> 
> TWiki.org Service: Date and Time Gateway 
> http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/xtra/tzdate
> 
> Which I believe is under a revision by your penmanship.
> 
> Q. Are the GMT offsets mixed in this website? When I think of GMT-5 I 
> think of Eastern Standard Time, however your site lists GMT-5 as where 
> I always think GMT+5 is.
> 
> > Greenwich Mean Time: (GMT/UCT/UTC/Universal/Zulu; positive numbers 
> > count hours west of GMT
> 
> What is the cause of having positive numbers count west of GMT? Aren't 
> positive numbers, by definition, to be east of GMT? (like GMT+5 is add 
> 5 hours to the time at GMT?)
> 
> I've seen lots of confusion about this on the web and I don't 
> understand why this is so. I have always thought GMT-5 was Eastern 
> Standard Time, not some time in the European longitudes.
> 
> Can you please speculate on this? I'm also trying to find the 
> difference between UTC and GMT (as I've read they are the same but not 
> exactly). Maybe this is how they differ.
> 
> I'm terribly confused. Please offer an explanation to your readers in 
> the form of a link or direct them to such a place.
> 
> Regards,
> Roland Krystian Alberciak.

--
   * Peter Thoeny                           Peter at Thoeny.com
   * Is your team already TWiki enabled?    http://TWiki.org
   * This e-mail is:  (_) public  (x) ask first  (_) private