Why is eastern time faster?

Answer 1

The earth turns anti-clockwise (counter-clockwise) just like all other planets in the solar system bar Venus. Day occurs, obviously, when the sun shines on the face of the earth, so if you imagine looking at the earth from above as it is turning anti-clockwise it is the areas furthest to the east that will first get sun, if the sun remains in a fixed position.

What this means is that if you expect the day to "start" when the sun comes up (let's call sunrise as 6am local time), then a place further to the east will experience sunrise before a place to the west. Thus, more eastern zone should have 6am occur BEFORE the more western zone. Using this numbering, at a fixed absolute time, a timezone which is more easterly than the current one will require it to be FURTHER along in the day, thus "later" in the day than the current one. The opposite is true for a zone west of the current one, where local time will be EARLIER than the current one.

Logically, this makes sense - if sunrise is at 6am, and someone to the east sees sunrise before you do, then by the time you see sunrise, they should be at some time AFTER 6am (their time). Conversely, a person west of you has yet to see the sunrise when you first see it at 6am (local time), so they must be at some local time BEFORE 6am.

This means day occurs earlier the more east you go, and so time zones get "earlier" as you travel from east to west. This continues until you reach the international date line (IDL) which is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Once you pass this, the time will still be earlier (e.g. 6.00 will turn to 5.00) but you will "gain a day" since it is officially 23 hours later rather than one hour earlier.

Answer 2

Due to earth's rotation, the east meets the sun first, making it later.

Weekly Geo #21

-D

Answer 3

The reason why eastern time is faster is because the earth turns to the east and hits the sun/moon faster than the central. Did that answer your question?

Answer 4

because of you and i move the sun

-Albert Einstein