Some of you readers are a lot smarter than I am, and I happen to be stuck. I’d be obliged if any of you can wrap your minds around this problem and tell me how to do it.
One of the projects I work on daily involves series regularly scheduled ‘events’ happening across the world. Every day they’re conducted at the same locations and at repeated intervals, several hundred times each day for each location.
I know the precise geographic coordinates for the locations and the local times of the events. But one part of the experiment requires examination and comparisons of simultanious events, say, from a location in Australia, another in NY, another in Rhode Island, to keep it simple.
But two events happening, say, in Rhode Island and New York at the ‘same time’ by the clock are actually several minutes apart. They occupy the same time zone, but events in Rhode Island at 3PM aren’t the same events as those happening in NY at 3PM.
But even without taking DST into the equation, events in Australia might be 15 hours and 30 minutes later by the clock to be simultaneous with New York, or Rhode Island, and only one of the two. The event in one would be simultaneous with Australia several minutes earlier, or later, than the other.
I can calculate minute-by-minute sidereal times for each of the locations, but establishing a baseline for the relationships in terms of simulataneity eludes me. I do all this on a spreadsheet. I know nothing about programming computers.
I’d welcome any suggestions. Particularly if it involves something automatic and repeatable. It’s probably something simple, even stupid, but I’d like to get past trying to figure out how to do it and get around to actually doing it.
Gracias, Old Jules
I’ve got to get going. I’ll be back online sometime later today.
So Far From Heaven 
The difference in times may well be related to the time on your computer. If I recall you are on a dial up internet right?
Your computer time “could” be off , relative to the real time as coordinated to rest of the World. There used to be a simple way to check and rest your computer clock, allowing or internet speed delays.
Or the internet service that you dial into time settings could be off.
So what I am saying simply is , “check your time “
Hi Ben. That strikes me as worth doing even if it doesn’t solve this particular problem. It might be the source of others. I’ll do it. Gracias, Jules
That’s a knowing anwesr to a difficult question
ok…it is official…I am NOT one of your smarter readers!!!
Granny1947: If not, you and I have that in common. I’m glad we’re both here anyway. Gracias, Jules
I’m confused.
One Fly: I probably didn’t explain the problem well enough to be understandable. Obliged you came by. Thankee. J
Jules is there anything in the 260 Postulates Of Time that might address this issue? maybe asking the writer may help, I’ve still got it’s site bookmarked, I don’t recall if there was a forum etc. on it but it is a rabbit hole of sorts. I’ll talk to my friend also you asked about. The direction I’m leaning in is if an intelligent entity created all, and all has always been and always will be, why is time necessary at all, besides as a human creation to measure the distance from “here to there”, whatever it may be? Since so many things(ALL???) are required to have things such as frequency, waves, vibrations, movement to even exist, it may be that time is not really what man has conceived it to be but rather being a main component of all the EMF forces holding all that exists together in ways we can’t comprehend with 2 or 3 dimensional thinking at this time, I’m beginning to think Time is another one of those things Man knows everything about and remains totally clueless. Where’s Tesla when you need him? Don Juan the Brujo would be able to test the I Ching out simultaneously in 2 locations but he was debunked years ago. About the only way it could be tested that I can see……..today…..it may be that light, sound and time are the real building blocks in the Universe. how many facets does time have? I’m sure this is not helping much, we’re both beating our heads against the wall but WTF can you do with a condition that has no beginning or end, how can it be defined? No start, no stop, eternally existing….is time an entity or a condition? Is it active and “alive” or just a passive state of “existence”?
Hi Rich: It’s not related directly to this problem. I’ll have to think on what you’re saying a bit. I think this one that has me stumped is a fairly simple and straightforward problem that I’m just too close to to see the answer. Gracias, Jules
Set UTC as the baseline, then establish the delta between the UTC time and the locale’s sidereal time? To calc the delta between X to Y, apply the delta from X to UTC, then apply the delta from Y to UTC.
Michael: Ahhhhhh. Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou. Jules
Just came to the comments to see what was being offered, as I am seriously mathematically challenged. Glad to see Michael supply a response that seems to do the trick, but I remain bamboozled! Intriguing experiment, however.
wonderingpilgrim: I agree it’s a bamboozler, the whole problem. Difficult to get the mind to work on the problem in the sort of holistic way required, in my instance. Things try to wiggle and squirm out of the focus. Gracias, Jules
You understood that?
angrymanspeaks: Hey guy! Thanks for stopping in. I understood it well enough to set off the lightbulb in my head I needed to go ahead with it. I’ll be doing it a bit differently when I run it through a trial run here in a little while, just converting them all to Greenwich Mean sidereal time and using that as the baseline. I think it will do the job. Gracias, Jules
I wasn’t sure I understood the question and I sure didn’t understand M’s answer but I will tell you what I do with confusing time and unsure time lines. When I road trip with buddies, we never change to other locale time zones. After all, we are from Texas and keep what we call Empire Time. Always!
michael ultra: Probably there’s someone out there in the world trying to get Greenwich time moved and converted put Dallas or Houston in the center of it. Glad for your visit. Haven’t seen you in a while after you quit updating your blog. Hope things are good for you. Gracias, Jules
Never having chased such concerns, I would not likely have thought of Michael’s answer. But like you, I certainly understood it. Having messed so much with Unix, computer nerds jokingly refer to UTC as “Unix Time” because it’s the default when you install Unix on a computer — “set the BIOS to UTC…” It’s the time zone for the Internet.
Morning Ed. Strange how the seeminly obvious sometimes sneaks past without our noticing it and a word or two lights it up to illustrate blindness by hindsight. Glad to see you this morning. Gracias, J
After reading the comments, I’m more confused than I was by your question. Does this reveal a certain stupidity level I should have left unconfessed?
Hi Lindy Lee: Nope. It only reveals that a lot of things around us aren’t easy to comprehend. Thanks for the visit. Jules