Time is a River

What's the difference between UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) and GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), you ask? Maybe you don't ask, but it's a story worth telling anyway. It never hurts to know these things, does it? Curiosity is good for the human soul. One of the criticisms leveled against George W. Bush is that he is incurious. I believe that incuriosity leads to ignorance. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but I think the cat had a hot time poking into everything just the same. That's why cats are so, like, unable to be coerced into anything. They are too smart to be coerced and/or co-opted.

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is a term originally referring to mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. Strictly speaking, UTC is an atomic time scale which only approximates GMT with a tolerance of 0.9 second. It is also used to refer to Universal Time (UT) which is a standard astronomical concept used in many technical fields and is referred to as Zulu time.

Why do we observe these precise time methodologies? Because without precise time, a whole bunch of stuff in this world (that we take for granted and never think about) would not work, and that would make us crazy. Or lost. Or dead. Or all three. Or worse.

UTC is the time system used for many Internet and World Wide Web standards. In particular, the Network Time Protocol is designed to synchronize the clocks of many computers over the Internet (usually to that of a known accurate atomic clock) and, thus, uses UTC.

Those who transmit on the amateur radio bands often log the time of their radio contacts in UTC, as transmissions can go worldwide on some frequencies. In the past, the FCC required all amateur radio operators in the United States to log their radio conversations. International broadcasters such as the BBC World Service also use UTC when publishing their schedules and announcing times during broadcasts.

UTC is also the time system used in aviation. Weather forecastings, flight plans, air-traffic control clearances, and maps all use UTC (colloquially referred to as "Zulu Time") to avoid confusion about time zones and daylight saving time.

If we didn't have precise time, how would we know when to turn on the next football game? Case closed.