[LEAPSECS] Tripping over the International Date Line

[Rob Seaman]

On Mar 7, 2007, at 11:30 AM, Daniel R. Tobias wrote:


> The plot point never made much sense to me, even when I read it first

> as a kid.  After crossing the International Date Line, the entourage

> had to get all the way across the United States, and then the

> Atlantic Ocean, making various transportation and accomodation

> arrangements in the mean time.  The reader is expected to believe

> that through all of this none of their party happened to notice that

> the date, as reckoned by locals in the places they passed through,

> differed by one day from the date they believed it to be, despite

> managing to catch various trains and ships whose timetables depended

> on the actual date.


Even more unlikely, they never noticed that the day of the week was  
different.  I guess an implicit assumption of the plot is that he  
wouldn't take one day out of seven to observe the sabbath.  This just  
goes to show that the aristocracy can afford to be oblivious to  
social mores.

O tempora!  O mores!

Rob