At every point the globe new calendar date, otherwise calendar date starts at midnight. And since in different places on our planet midnight comes at different time, then in some points the new calendar date comes earlier, and in others later. This situation, especially when traveling around the world, often led to misunderstandings, expressed in the "loss" or "gain" of a whole day.

So, for example, the sailors of the flotilla of Fernando Magellan (c. 1480–1521), returning in 1522 from a round-the-world trip to Spain from the east and stopping in Santiago Bay, discovered a discrepancy of one day between their account of days, which they carefully kept in the ship’s journal) and the account that was kept locals, and were supposed to bring church repentance for violating the dates of religious holidays. The secret of this "loss" lies in the fact that they made trip around the world in the direction opposite to the Earth's rotation on its axis. Moving from east to west, when returning to their starting point, the travelers spent one day less on the way (that is, they saw one less sunrise) than the days passed at the starting point. (If you make a round-the-world trip from west to east, then for travelers it will take one more day than at the starting point. Russian explorers who discovered and mastered West Coast North America, meeting with the locals who settled the country from the east, celebrated Sunday on the day when the locals had Saturday.

The meridian, whose longitude is 180 °, or 12 hours, is on Earth the boundary between the western and eastern hemispheres. If from Greenwich meridian one ship will go east and the other west, then on the first of them, when crossing the meridian with a longitude of 180 °, the time will be 12 hours ahead of Greenwich, and on the second - 12 hours behind Greenwich.

Rice. 6. Dateline

To avoid confusion about the dates of the month, international agreement has been installed international date line, which for the most part runs along the meridian with a longitude of 180 ° (12 hours). Here the new calendar date (day of the month) begins the earliest. On fig. 6 shows part of the date line.

The crew of a ship crossing the date line from west to east must count the same day twice in order not to gain a gain in the number of days, and vice versa, when crossing this date line from east to west, it is necessary to skip one day in order not to receive this waste of the day. Related to this is the task formulated by Ya. I. Perelman, “How many Fridays are there in February?” For the crew of a ship plying, for example, between Chukotka and Alaska, in February leap year there may be ten Fridays if it passes the international date line at midnight from Friday to Saturday from west to east, and not a single Friday if the ship passes this date line at midnight from Thursday to Friday heading west.

It is customary to say "Japan is a country rising sun". It is understood that this country is the first to meet the new day. But this is a delusion. In fact, Japan is about 2750 kilometers from the date line, and can in no way be considered the place where the day begins. Even our Chukotka Peninsula is only a few kilometers from this line.

In general, the date change line is a rather curious markup. In astronomical terms, it clearly runs along the 180th meridian. But due to the fact that thousands of islands are scattered in the Pacific Ocean, many of which lie within the 180th meridian and even sometimes belong to one state, they decided to break the line and adjust it to the needs of mankind. It is extremely illogical if in one part of the island it is still “today”, and in another it is already “tomorrow”. Formally, the date change line now looks like this.

Fiji has in its composition the island of Taveuni, through which (almost in the middle) the same 180th meridian passes, so the island can be safely considered a place where "today" meets "tomorrow". Moreover, if it is Monday in the western part of the island, then it is already Tuesday in the eastern part.

Taveuni Island and date line on the map

• The geographical coordinates of the island are -16.857214, -179.970951
• The distance from the capital of Fiji, the city of Suva, is approximately 220 km.
• In the northernmost part of the island there is its own airport Matei, 18 kilometers from the 180th meridian

And although formally the date line has been moved far beyond the island, there is an interesting attraction on Taveuni. A place where the past meets the future.

This, of course, is not a grandiose world landmark, but, you see, where else can a person be with one foot in the outgoing day, and the other in the coming one.

As you can see in the photographs, at different times the attraction changed its appearance. One thing remained unchanged - the location.

At different times, the attraction looked different
Perhaps tourists periodically take away these cards as a keepsake.

And let you, most likely, not be struck by her appearance, but the very fact of presence, let's not be afraid of this word, "at the edge of the Earth", and even at the same time in two days, will surely be remembered for a lifetime. And you can easily jump from one day to another and back.

How to live the same day twice? How to jump from today to the day after tomorrow without a time machine? Where on the planet New Year comes first? The answers to these questions are related to such a concept as the date line. This is a conditional boundary drawn along the surface of the Earth and separating areas in which the time differs by about a day.

lost day

As you know, counting time is not an abstract procedure. It is connected with the fundamental cosmic laws, expressed in the rotation of our planet around its axis and in its circulation around the Sun. These patterns were noticed and formed the basis of time reckoning in antiquity. However, the need to take into account the movement of the planet and adjust the determination of dates when moving over impressive distances arose only in 1521, when he made his

The team, having arrived at their point of departure, found that Europe was already alive on September 7, while in logbook the date is September 6, - one day has disappeared somewhere. Since the documentation on the ship was kept very carefully, the probability of error was extremely low. Soon, the inquisitive minds of Europe realized where one day disappeared during Magellan's journey.

Dateline: definition

The earth rotates on its axis from west to east. At the same time, sailors led by Magellan adhered to opposite direction. They circled the planet from east to west, seeing one less sunrise than during the trip they met in Europe.

In order to prevent such annoying confusion every time someone decides to go around the world, a date line was drawn. It almost completely passes along the 180º meridian and is the boundary where the time of day remains the same, but the calendar date changes. For example, if to the west of the line on the calendar is May 18, then to the east is another 17th. At the same time, both there and there the clock shows approximately the same time.

Location on a geographical map

Unlike the international date line, it practically does not fall on land. Thanks to this, in most cases, when moving around the planet, you do not have to subtract or add one day. As already mentioned, the main part of the line coincides with the 180º meridian. It connects the two poles, falling on land only in Antarctica. For the first time, the time border deviates from the meridian in the region of the eastern territory of our country. Then the date line passes through the Pacific Ocean, having overcome To the south of it, the border again deviates from the 180º meridian: it goes around from the west. Further, the date line passes through the waters of the big ocean Earth. The next significant deviation is located in the Fiji region, Tongatapu, Chatam, Kermadec. The line in this area passes east of the meridian and then returns to it south of New Zealand.

In the Bering Strait region, a temporary boundary separates the Diomede Islands. The distance between them is only four kilometers. When on belonging to the territory of the United States, "yesterday" still continues, to which Russia belongs, already "today".

rule

Change of dates must be carried out when crossing the line. If the ship is moving from east to west, then its crew needs to increase the calendar date by one. In case of moving to reverse direction it decreases. On the segment where the time border deviates around the islands of Oceania, the team has the right to change the date only after overcoming the meridian of 180º, if the ship does not call at one of the ports, that is, there is no need to synchronize with local time.

It turns out that when crossing the line in a certain direction, you can live the same day twice. Some romantics contemplate such a journey under significant dates: wedding anniversary, birthday.

Moving the border

The International Date Line on the map did not always look the way it does today. In the Philippines, almost until the middle of the century before last, the calendar sheets were turned over in accordance with the "American" calculus. At the same time, on the island of Celebes, which is located on the same geographical longitude, adhered to the so-called Asian date.

In Alaska, the calendar was synchronized with the time in the country to which it belonged: until 1867 with Russia, and then with the United States. The island of Samoa changed its method of calculation twice in accordance with the needs of trade. In 1892, when he was actively trading with the United States, it was decided to move the temporary border to the west. Residents of the country that year met the dawn twice on July 4th. A little over a century later, in 2011, came to the fore trade relations with the countries of the Asia-Pacific region. The date line has been moved to the east of the island. As a result, this year after December 29, the 31st immediately came.

Who in the world is the first to celebrate the New Year?

A significant deviation of the line from the meridian near the equator is associated with the decision of the government of Kiribati in 1995 to allocate a new time zone for the Line Islands. The reason for this was quite weighty. Kiribati was divided into two zones: while in one the calendar indicated, for example, June 14, in the other it was already 15.

It is on the Line Islands that a new day begins earlier than anywhere else on Earth. The population of this territory is the first to meet January 1. Exactly last fact caused particular indignation among the population of Tonga and the New Zealand Islands. They were going to be the first to meet the Millennium, but the formation of a new time zone deprived them of this opportunity.

At its core, the international date line is just a conditional border. It is not based on any physical laws. The line was created for the convenience of international communication. The change from one date to another when crossing this border is similar to the change of clocks during the transition to daylight savings or winter time. These actions help a person relate his movement or activity to space processes, but do not follow directly from them.

It differs by a day (or almost a day). That is, by different sides the clock lines show approximately the same time of day (there may be a difference of one to three hours due to the shift in time zones), however, on the western side of the line, the date is shifted one day ahead of the eastern one. This can be expressed differently as follows: if on the date line in this moment midnight, then on the opposite Greenwich meridian 0 at this moment it is noon, while to the east of the date change line the day has begun, and to the west of it the same day is already ending.

The international date line roughly corresponds to the 180° meridian, which runs mainly along the ocean, but deviates significantly from it in places. There is no international agreement regarding the international date line; the local time determined by states in their territory and adjacent territorial waters, and not in international waters.

The International Date Line does not run on land anywhere except in Antarctica, although there are cases where it is drawn between closely spaced islands, such as between the Diomede Islands, which are only 4 km apart. The northern part of the date line begins in the Arctic Ocean, goes around the eastern territories of the Russian Federation from the east, enters the Pacific Ocean through the Bering Strait, to the south passes to the western side of the 180 ° meridian, leaving the Aleutian Islands to the east, after which it again enters the meridian 180 °. The line then follows Pacific Ocean to Antarctica itself, experiencing another major deviation to the east in Oceania (Kiribati, etc.).

Regarding this section, it should be noted that a vessel traveling in the Pacific Ocean may well ignore the time of the nearby islands of Oceania (if it does not call at their ports) and carry out date translation on the 180 ° meridian.

After crossing the date line from east to west, you need to increase the calendar number by one, and after crossing it from west to east, on the contrary, decrease it by one. Changes to dates should only be made using, in one form or another, local time. Misunderstanding of this circumstance leads to "paradoxes" regarding bypassing the Earth's pole in a circle or flying around the Earth in orbit.

lost day

Acquired day

A large eastward deviation in the equatorial part of the line arose in 1995, when the government of Kiribati decided to allocate the Line Islands to a new time zone (UTC +14). As a result, the Line Islands have the same time as Hawaii, but a day ahead, and the inhabitants of these islands are the first in the world to meet the new day.

In 2011, the Samoan authorities decided to move back to the west side of the International Date Line. The reason for this was the established close economic ties Samoa with Australia, New Zealand and other states of the Asia-Pacific region, with which time diverged by almost a day. For the transition, December 30, 2011 was skipped and after December 29, December 31 came immediately. A similar transition took place in Tokelau - dependent territory administered by New Zealand administrative bodies Tokelau is located in the capital of Samoa - the city of Apia.

Reference meridians

An excerpt characterizing the Date Line

The regiment of Prince Andrei was in reserves, which until the second hour stood behind Semenovsky in inactivity, under heavy artillery fire. In the second hour, the regiment, which had already lost more than two hundred men, was moved forward into a trodden oat field, to that gap between Semyonovsky and the kurgan battery, on which thousands of people were beaten that day and on which, in the second hour of the day, intensely concentrated fire was directed from several hundred enemy guns.
Without leaving this place and without releasing a single charge, the regiment lost another third of its people here. Front and especially with right side, in the smoke that did not dissipate, cannons boomed and from the mysterious area of ​​​​smoke that covered the entire area in front, without ceasing, with a hissing quick whistle, shot out cannonballs and slowly whistling grenades. Sometimes, as if giving rest, a quarter of an hour passed, during which all the cannonballs and grenades flew over, but sometimes for a minute several people were pulled out of the regiment, and the dead were constantly dragged away and the wounded carried away.
With each new blow, fewer and fewer accidents of life remained for those who had not yet been killed. The regiment stood in battalion columns at a distance of three hundred paces, but, despite the fact, all the people of the regiment were under the influence of the same mood. All the people of the regiment were equally silent and gloomy. Rarely was a conversation heard between the rows, but this conversation fell silent every time a blow was heard and a cry: “Stretcher!” Most time, the people of the regiment, by order of the authorities, sat on the ground. Who, having removed the shako, diligently disbanded and again gathered the assemblies; some with dry clay, spreading it in their palms, polished the bayonet; who kneaded the belt and tightened the buckle of the sling; who diligently straightened and bent over the new hems and changed shoes. Some built houses from Kalmyk arable land or wove braids from stubble straw. Everyone seemed quite immersed in these activities. When people were wounded and killed, when stretchers were pulled, when ours were coming back, when they were visible through the smoke large masses enemies, no one paid any attention to these circumstances. When artillery and cavalry rode forward, the movements of our infantry were visible, approving remarks were heard from all sides. But the most great attention deserved events completely extraneous, which had nothing to do with the battle. As if the attention of these morally tormented people rested on these ordinary, everyday events. The artillery battery passed in front of the front of the regiment. In one of the artillery boxes, the tie-down line intervened. “Hey, that tie-down! .. Straighten it! It will fall ... Oh, they don’t see it! .. - they shouted from the ranks in the same way throughout the regiment. Next time general attention turned a small brown dog with a firmly raised tail, which, God knows where it came from, ran in an anxious trot in front of the ranks and suddenly squealed from a close-hitting shot and, tail between its legs, rushed to the side. There were chuckles and squeals all over the regiment. But entertainment of this kind continued for minutes, and for more than eight hours people had been standing without food and doing nothing under the unceasing horror of death, and pale and frowning faces grew paler and more and more frowning.
Prince Andrei, just like all the people of the regiment, frowning and pale, walked up and down the meadow near the oat field from one boundary to the other, with his hands folded back and his head bowed. There was nothing for him to do or order. Everything was done by itself. The dead were dragged behind the front, the wounded were carried away, the ranks closed. If the soldiers ran away, they immediately hurriedly returned. At first, Prince Andrei, considering it his duty to arouse the courage of the soldiers and set an example for them, walked along the rows; but then he became convinced that he had nothing and nothing to teach them. All the strength of his soul, just like that of every soldier, was unconsciously aimed at refraining from contemplating the horror of the situation in which they were. He walked in the meadow, dragging his feet, scratching the grass and watching the dust that covered his boots; either he walked with long strides, trying to get into the tracks left by the mowers in the meadow, then, counting his steps, he made calculations how many times he had to go from boundary to boundary in order to make a verst, then he scoured the wormwood flowers growing on the boundary, and He rubbed these flowers in his palms and sniffed the fragrant, bitter, strong smell. From all yesterday's work, there was nothing left of thought. He didn't think about anything. He listened with a tired ear to the same sounds, distinguishing the whistle of flights from the rumble of shots, looked at the closer faces of the people of the 1st battalion and waited. “Here it is… this one is here again! he thought, listening to the approaching whistle of something closed area smoke. - One, the other! More! Horrible ... He stopped and looked at the ranks. “No, it moved. And here it is.” And he again began to walk, trying to do big steps in order to reach the boundary in sixteen steps.
Whistle and blow! In five steps from him, the dry earth blew up and the core disappeared. An involuntary cold ran down his back. He looked again at the ranks. Probably vomited many; a large crowd gathered at the 2nd battalion.
“Mr. adjutant,” he shouted, “tell them not to crowd. - The adjutant, having fulfilled the order, approached Prince Andrei. On the other side, the battalion commander rode up on horseback.
- Watch out! - a frightened cry of a soldier was heard, and, like a bird whistling on a fast flight, squatting on the ground, a grenade splashed softly, a few steps from Prince Andrei, near the horse of the battalion commander. The first horse, without asking whether it was good or bad to express fear, snorted, soared, almost dropping the major, and galloped off to the side. The horror of the horse was communicated to people.
- Lie down! - shouted the voice of the adjutant, lying on the ground. Prince Andrew stood in indecision. A grenade, like a top, smoking, spun between him and the recumbent adjutant, on the edge of arable land and meadows, near a sagebrush bush.

Date line - conditional line on the surface of the globe, delimiting places that have at the same time calendar dates that differ by one day; passes for the most part along the 180th meridian. In places immediately on either side of the date line, the hours and minutes are the same, but the calendar dates differ by one day.

At every point on the globe, a new calendar number (calendar date) starts at midnight. And since in different places on our planet midnight comes at different times, in some places the new calendar date comes earlier, and in others later. This situation, especially when traveling around the world, often led to misunderstandings, expressed in the "loss" or "gain" of a whole day. So, the sailors of the flotilla of Fernando Magellan (c. 1480-1521), returning in 1522 from a round-the-world trip to Spain from the east and stopping in the bay of Santiago, discovered a discrepancy of one day between their count of days (which they carefully kept in the ship's log) and the account kept by the locals, and had to bring church repentance for violating the dates of religious holidays.

The secret of such a "loss" is that they made a round-the-world trip from east to west - in the direction opposite to the rotation of the Earth around its axis. When returning to the starting point, the travelers spent one day less on the way (that is, they saw one less sunrise) than the days elapsed at the starting point. If you make a round-the-world trip from west to east, then for travelers it will take one more day than at the starting point.

The Greenwich meridian, whose longitude is 180°, or 12 hours, is the boundary between the western and eastern hemispheres on Earth. If one ship sets off from the Greenwich meridian to the east and the other to the west, then on the first of them, when crossing the meridian with a longitude of 180 °, the time will be 12 hours ahead of Greenwich, and on the second - 12 hours behind Greenwich. To avoid confusion about the dates of the month, an international date line was established by international agreement, which for the most part runs along the meridian with a longitude of 180 ° (12 hours). Here the new calendar date (day of the month) begins the earliest.

The crew of a ship crossing the date line from west to east must count the same day twice in order not to gain a gain in the number of days, and vice versa, when crossing this line from east to west, it is necessary to skip one day so as not to lose a day . This temporary "phenomenon" is devoted to the problem of the mathematician Ya. I. Perelman: "How many Fridays are in February?" For the crew of a ship plying, for example, between Chukotka and Alaska, there may be ten Fridays in February of a leap year if it passes the international date line at midnight from Friday to Saturday from west to east each time. And maybe not a single Friday, if the ship passes this line every time at midnight from Thursday to Friday from east to west. The international date line can be considered one of the symbols of relativity.