Time difference between India and USA

Time difference between India and the USA?

· Why do we have different time zones?

· Why there is a time difference between India and the USA?

Look at a clock nearby. What if the same clock shows the wrong time in a specific country? If you are a traveler, you must have experienced a time change when landing in another country. Why is it that your friends or relatives living in India or the USA are ahead or behind your time? It seems pretty impossible to digest. Is it that we are time traveling?

No, not at all. This is a world for real and no imagination at all. It’s just that those people are living in different time zones. If you don’t know about the time zone, then think of this earth as a sphere. A sphere that spins on its axis. Axis is an imaginary pole for the understanding of time zones. The earth makes a complete rotation around its axis every 24 hours. This makes a day.

Turn off your lights, take a football and shine a light from one side. You can see one side of the football brighter and the other one darker. The same happens with the earth. As the earth rotates, different parts of the world experience sunlight and darkness. When your location on earth rotates towards the sun, you experience dawn. And when it rotates out of the reach of the sun, you experience the sunset.

So, if the whole earth starts believing in one time zone, there would be evening and night in some places and day in some. So, to work according to the sunrise and sunset, scientists grouped to build a time zone map.

What is prime meridian?

Scientists have divided this earth into 24 sections or time zones. This came into effect since they came to know about the rotation of the earth. The earth completes its 360-degree rotation in 24hours. It generally moves 15degree in every 60 minutes around its axis. Now, each time zone is 15 degrees of longitude vast.

As you go near the equator, the distance between the time zone increases. The curvature nature of the earth results in zero time zones at the north pole and south pole. The total length of the equator is 24,902 miles long. These imaginary lines that divide the earth start from Greenwich, London. The primary line of longitude that divides is called Prime meridian. The angular distance between any point at a meridian to Greenwich or prime meridian is called Longitude.

Greenwich mean time (GMT) is a standard of time. As you move towards the east, each time zone is an hour later. Similarly, if you move towards the west, each time zone is an hour earlier.

Distance between USA and India

The latitude of Washington DC, Unites States is 38.895, and its longitude is -77.036667. The latitude of Delhi, India, is 28.64, and its longitude is 77.22. The distance between the United States and India is 12,045 km. The center of the United States is 11:30 hours behind the center of India.

How many time zones are there?

There are 24 time zones in the world right now. The international date line (IDL) creates three more. It’s because several time zones are only thirty to forty minutes apart. Hence it increases the total number of standard times even further.

How many times zone is there in the USA and India?

America has six time zones. These are named Hawaii, Alaska, Pacific, Mountain, Central, and Eastern from west to east. It’s because America is enormous compared to India. They have different longitudinal lengths. Each time zone of America has different times.

• Easters time zone: (UCT – 5:00)
• Central :(UTC-6:00)
• Mountain:(UTC-7:00)
• Pacific:(UTC-8:00)
• Alaska:(UTC-9:00)
• Hawaii :(UTC-10:00)

The standard time of India is 5.5 hours(82.5degree) ahead of GMT. India has only a one-time zone.

Does the time gap between the USA and India change with climate?

Many questions arise in one’s mind regarding the time difference between the USA and India. But since it’s all clear till now, one question remains unanswered. As we all know, there is a time gap between the USA and India, but as climate changes, the time gap changes. How is this possible when at both places clock is moving at the same speed?

According to Avdhesh Meena, who studied at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi said:

“The time gaps between the USA and India are different in both seasons. It is because of the latitudinal position and seasonal variation. If you remember the basic geography from childhood days, those days and nights are caused by the earth’s rotation. The USA is at a higher latitude than India. So, if you see in summer, they will have long days as compare to India.

On the other hand, in winter, they will have relatively short days. Also, as they are at higher latitudes, the distance traveled by the sun’s rays in the atmosphere is significant (as it reaches there at an incline). We know that before the sun rises, there is a period of dawn due to rays of the sun reaching the earth’s surface through refraction and other processes.

So, the dawn period and similarly the twilight period is higher in the USA as it is at higher latitude, and it may be up to 2.5 hrs. This makes the day even longer in the USA during summers. So due to this long day, the USA came up with the concept of daylight-saving time (actually, Benjamin Franklin proposed it).

As per this, to utilize the extra daylight during summers, the people of the USA forward their watches by 1hr. So, their work starts and ends one hour earlier. This increases their leisure time in the evening. So due to this, the gap of time between USA and India decreases during summer and when they back their watches in winter the difference again becomes same.”

How to schedule a call from India to the USA?

If you are trying to call a friend or a client from India to the USA, you must schedule it beforehand. There is a significant time difference, so it’s better to know what time is on the other side. As the US is 11 hours 30 mins behind India, you can try calling between 6 30 PM 10 30 AM in India. That will be 7 AM to 11 PM in the US.

How long will it take to travel from the USA to India?

It will take you 150.56 hours if you travel nonstop by car from Washington DC to Delhi. The constant speed to be maintained to reach this time will be 80km per hour.

It will take you 20.08 hours if you are traveling by airplane from Washington to Delhi.

We hope that this blog helped you understand why there is a time difference between India and the USA. Not only India and the USA, but you can also now calculate and find out which countries are ahead or behind you. You have found a detailed answer on why countries have different time zones and why it’s too important.

Also, read the Difference between hearing and listening.