American Reacts to Why Britain is the Center of the World 

Nice one.

Nowadays the French and Brits finally made peace by calling coordinated universal time UTC, which makes sense in neither French nor English.

@@jbird4478 No peace JBird rather a quiet simmer. Used to have responsibility for maintaining a watch on "Time" in Working Group 4A at the ITU. GMT = average position overhead of the Sun and UTC was defined as a number of oscillations of a Caesium atom and then 60 seconds =1 minute and so on. Americans designed GPS using UTC and had to keep adjusting their clocks to keep in line with GMT as UTC was adjusted to keep time with GMT ( the STANDARD time). So the Americans pushed for UTC to become the standard time - which the French loved because it was a French invention! BUT. Adopting UTC would have meant that in centuries to come, people would be getting up as the sun was going down ( and it would still be 07:00 a.m.). So UTC was adopted with the constraints that GMT was subject to.

@@kevincasey5035 UTC is the standard time because it is based on the SI unit for time, instead of GMT which is an obsolete measurement. Regardless, I meant the abbreviation used. Coordinated universal time would be CUT in English, but TCU in French. So they decided to compromise by giving nobody what they wanted, which is UTC and doesn't make sense in either language.

TMP probably.

its really strange that the guy suggests countries didnt really use maps or trade with each other until the 1800s. some really weird takes. youd probably find significant trade between different peoples in 1800bc, never mind 1800ad. the romans and the greeks had huge merchant ships.

Yea, it's almost like the Empire with land in every continent bar Antarctica using the same maps and time... for 200 years was able to get greater buy-in 😅

Even his US-centric version of the story was very poorly explained.

​​@@RazagalArtanis its not good to lie... We got a good chunk of Antarctica too

@@L4g__ Aye, spending millions of tax payers money on summat they hav'nt found yet. And yep, they could stick a flag in a geographical location, SECOND. About that time my great great granny was dying of hypothermia because they could'nt afford the coal. The "good old days".

Yep, the best clocks in the world at the time.

The documentary 'Longitude' is about John Harrison. I'm sure that his invention of the Marine Chronometer and the fact that if GMT was 0 the International Date Line passes through the least number of countries had something to do with the decision. Although yes, Britain is the centre of the World.

@@silverfireUK Just not the 'center' ;-)

Yes but then he would not be able to make it sound like it was all down to the Americans, they like nothing more than altering or omitting facts of history in their favour.

Aye, if mr Harrison was a septic tank, i fancy he'd have got a mention. There were lots of good chronometer makers about, at the time. Just seems "John boys" was the best candiddate. Ye French still struggle with the concept.

Someone must have done it for the New Year 1999-2000 so the different ends of the ship would be in a different millenniums

SHAME IF NOBODY THOUGHT OF IT@@JEF3N

Nope, the 20th century started on 1st Jan 1901. The millennium actually started on 1st Jan 2001. Maybe that was the bug, people got the wrong year 😂

And rude eu countries call us the island. In comments on utube rrmoaners are exaggerating about brexit

​@@tenniskinsella7768, are people still talking about Brexit? I've not heard that word for about 2 years.😂

@fishingdandan4788 , what? I said no-one talks about it anymore. You people are crazy.

@fishingdandan4788 , dude, I know where I am. I spend my time between Scotland, England and Wales. I haven't heard the word Brexit for at least two years. I don't know how else to put that. No-one cares, and no-one is stopping me from pissing off to Spain.

@@fishingdandan4788 , I can assure you, it is that easy. My parents moved to Spainl last year. Getting residency was a piece of piss.

Solar system but not universe.

No, Universe as any Star Trek fan will tell you English is the default language of the Universe. 🤣

Yes your so right. We the greatest most amazing country in space lol

@@stevebagnall1553 Everywhere is the centre of the universe! Because everything is inflated from the centre and never moved. Inflation doesn't move any objects. it creates empty space between them. Moving into that space due to gravitational forces doesn't remove you from the center either it's still part of it. If you can't make sense of it, don't dispair! Many don't understand. The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.

Mr Spock, a Vulcan, spoke perfect English, meaning English has travelled 20,0000, 567,000, 0742 light years into space minimum.

Year 7 geography when we are 11 😅

exactly americans with their idiot education system lol

Not only in the UK, but also in the rest of Europe(i think). I am from much on the east and i know that from my school lessons. Apparently is American thing to not know that.

And my town is the centre of Britain and my house is the centre or that town. Therefore the whole world revolves around me.

@@BgStalker there's many things America chooses not to teach their students..

Loe it!

I know , information and facts about the world and history seem to bypass Americans completely, their lack of basic knowledge continues to amaze me !

Same here. Dave from the U.K.

Ditto, we learned about longitude/latitude aged about 11. Given the US' prominence in the world, Americans are especially poor at geography. That said, and speaking as a Brit, the anglosphere (US/Canada/UK/Australia/New Zealand) generally has tendency to show less interest in non English-speaking territories.

Yes, Peter, although not in your school year, they still taught this at primary age when I was at school. Today the focus on other priorities now (more political etc ...🤣 )

I forget which country it is but a chain of islands close to the international date line switched time zones to better trade with (I think) the US. Its definitely interesting!

@@carlena4300 Samoa ? I think it was the other way around in their case. They initially changed their timezone to better trade with the US, given their close neighbour and US territory American Samoa was on the other side of the dateline. Samoa though had far closer links and trade with NZ and Australia and so changed back in 2011. There have been a few other occasions when this has happened, Kiritbati as some point I think, but the Samoa situation was the last time it happened.

Could have been worse if you went the other way you could have missed Christmas day 😆

@@DMGamanda true! It was nice seeing all the staff dressed up for Christmas and eating the different Christmas foods in Germany and Canada!

Is there a link to the video he’s reacting to?

this is railway time you are talking about this standardised time from there on in the military GMT is known as zulu time

@@59patrickw Airlines also refer to GMT as Zulu time. At sea still GMT.

That is, surely, not strictly right. They needed a fixed point for maritime navigation purposes (vital for Britain) but they only really needed standardised time within Great Britain with the fast growth of the railways; time-tabling was a nightmare without it.

Harrison is quite a prominent name in Yorkshire. Sorry for being slightly off topic.,

Wasnt it the Harrison piece that Del Boy thought was a Victorian egg timer and finally became a millionaire lol

@@moonramshaw1982 That's the one - a nice little earner for Del Boy - 5 million knickers

@@moonramshaw1982 Egg timer 😂🤘 brilliant show loved it

Only Fools and Horses. Great episode.

Nope. How to find your longitude is nothing to do with where the zero meridian should be.

@@RexCorpuscle 😆 maybe your way off the time..

@@RexCorpuscle navigation maybe ?

I think when he weas a young man he made a clock out of wood. He used Lignum Vitae wood as bearings and this clock was in a courtyard. It is still there working I believe. This was in the mid 1700,s.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LHvt48S9l4w.htmlsi=MmuC8HA9tIHhay2V This is a link to a brilliant drama called "Longitude". It tells the true story of John Harrisons struggle not only how to perfect his timepiece but how the establishment tried to deny him reward that had been offered to anyone that could solve the problem of navigating the oceans safely. The 3hr long drama simultaneously tells the story of John Gould the man who meticulously restored all of the clocks and his struggles with PTSD following the first world war. A plethora of famous British actors add to a fantastic true story.

I learned this at school and may I say I might be slightly younger than you.

Same here and now they don’t teach them this kind of thing

A threepenny piece, roughly....

They've been the biggest bullies you mean...

@@briank4404hardly. Rule with the cooperation of the natives. We are a small country. We can’t bully, merely persuade. I don’t know where you are from but judging by the inferiority complex I’d say Ireland.

@@hugohugo2832 im fairly sure there was a fair amount of bullying m8. youre guessing hes from ireland? based on what? britian did invade ireland, occupy its country, stole its wealth while a million people died of starvation and openly talked about culling the 'sub human' population of ireland and replacing it with british settlers. so is that how britain established the 'inferiority' of the irish, while obviously not being bullies, they were persuading them of course, persuading them with guns, slavery and genocide.

@@necaacen “bullying” you sound a bit wet. Hard time at school?

come on dude every country at 1 time in history has "bullied" on another, don't forget the Roman empire conquered Britain which is where we got the name from ie the "Roman Province of Britannia". Other conquerors eg the mongols : both conquered more of the known world than Britain and whilst we are at it America has attacked more countries than anyone in history.... here's a list of countries bombed since WW2 FAR FAR more than Britain. China 1950-53 Guatemala 1954 Indonesia 1958 Cuba 1959-60 Guatemala 1960 Belgian Congo 1964 Guatemala 1964 Dominican Republic 1965-66 Peru 1965 Laos 1964-73 Vietnam 1961-73 Cambodia 1969-70 Guatemala 1967-69 Lebanon 1982-84 Grenada 1983-84 Libya 1986 El Salvador 1981-92 Nicaragua 1981-90 Iran 1987-88 Libya 1989 Panama 1989-90 Iraq 1991 Kuwait 1991 Somalia 1992-94 Bosnia 1995 Iran 1998 Sudan 1998 Afghanistan 1998 Yugoslavia - Serbia 1999 Afghanistan 2001 Libya 2011 Iraq and Syria 2014 - Somalia 2011 - Iran 2020 - @@briank4404

Along with most other technology that improved the lives of millions of people. I'm no white supremacist but the supremacy of white culture and history cannot be denied.

We're just really rubbish at running and maintaining them now, much like most things we've invented 😅

And gravity 😊

and America

At one point a third of the worlds trains were ran on Welsh coal.

The French had a problem with maps - after their first full national survey the King observed that the national astronomers had lost the country more territory than their armies had !

I remember the first time I went to Paris - my sister and I went on one of those tour buses so we could get our bearings and at one point the guide said "it's from here that time is measured". The bus was full of Brits and we all laughed until the bus shook. 🤣🤣🤣

I had always heard that the agreement was between France and Britain that Greenwich could be the centre of time but Paris would be home to metric measurement. But I guess that the video maker being American had to make it about America too.

In the early 60s we covered this in the Infant School (5-7 years old) If you have to be in Uni to learn this basic thing, education is going to hell in a handbasket!

Love to hate the french.

Yep, this is the technological reason to choose Greenwich: for a long time ships could only determine their latitude with any accuracy (using a sextant when the sun is highest in the sky). It's kind of hard to navigate or draw accurate maps without knowing your longitude. Harrison invented a method to measure longitude using accurate clocks that could withstand conditions at sea (including constant movement and temperature changes). Ships used to synchronize their clocks before leaving port using the Greenwich observatory.

thats what we got you for.

This is it. Back in the early days of Empire, you needed to know not only were you were, but when you were as well

It is placed in the Observatory museum

@@adamnewman6846 Indeed _they_ are: H1, H2, H3, H4.

😂😂

You gonna give Al Murray some credit for that?

Imagine that dropping through the middle of Europe.

@@rootchiller Yep, many people on here are saying it was because England was the most powerful but It is far more likely to be the simple fact that having the prime meridian in London was the least disruption for the whole world, just a fluke of geography :)

Even if the prime meridian was somewhere else (e.g. Washington DC) the IDL could still go through the Bering Strait and down the middle of the Pacific, it just wouldn't be at (roughly) 180° E/W. It is much neater to have it there though.

Britain is NOT England.

It’s the British Isles… not England. England is only the bottom part.

Dam good place to see London's new skyline as well.

not really theres huge modern reasons for it too like the stock markets

Only reason mate? Get educated.

I live within a 10 minute (clear), drive of the Greenwich Observatory. Never been to it😳 Not been to any of our "tourist attractions", and I'm 41😅😅😅

@@ftroop2000 😲 I don't often say this but you need to get out more.

There is or was also a ball clock at Lyttelton in New Zealand. Damaged in an earthquakes 2010and 2011. the ball dropped at 1:00. There is the one O'clock gun at Edinburgh Castle. all serve the purpose of a signal to seafarers to set their time pieces accurately.

The world still runs according to how Britain’s balls drop! 😅👍🇬🇧

They also had signal towers in a long line from Greenwich all the way to Portsmouth, where the Royal Navy was mainly based. When the ball dropped at Greenwich, each signal tower would signal noon, that signal would get to Portsmouth, 90 miles away, in about 1 minute, and all the Royal Navy captains would sit there clocks to 12:01:00.

Wasn't this DelBoy's timepiece? 😂

@@gkkes That was H3, which in real life is still missing.

*Harrison.

Its the Harrison Clock.........his name was John Harrison ⏲

The only thing americans are taught at school is to believe they are superior to everyone else.

Yeah it's a nice place Greenwich I worked on painting the CUTTY SARK

@@ORDEROFTHEKNIGHTSTEMPLAR13 I made an Airfix model of the Cutty Sark when I was little! Actually learnt quite a lot about the ship just from doing that. Recommend that activity to every parent wanting to (a) educate your child (b) keep them quiet for a bit.

You should also try to be there at exactly 12pm so you can see the ball drop. This is pretty much the last such mechanism in everyday use, but originally it was done so that ships on the Thames could take an accurate reading for noon to set the ship's clock to.

Take a walk through the Greenwich foot tunnel next to the Cutty Sark. The echo is amazing.

In Britain we learn about it in primary school so it’s easy to forget when exactly you learned about it.

That’s the reason they did it.

Drive in France and you will it flagged up on signposts as well.

@gregoryjones2457 Was going to say same thing. Most tourists take pictures with one foot in the East and one foot in the West.

@gregoryjones2457 As a Kid it was free same as all the London Museums and even the Tower of London was free! Oh how times change !

It wouldn't have been weird because nobody carried any means of telling the time on their person. The nearest church tower was everybody's wrist watch, and if you did travel to another village you'd have no way of knowing what time it was back home, or that you'd lost or gained a minute or two. This is why church towers and steeples tend to have clocks on them, as the highest and most visible point that could be seen from pretty well everywhere within the 'time zone'.

Ha, thanks didn't even notice that fudge up.

Not just in there territory but then who they traded with cos one of the islands trades a lot with Australia and ended up with separate days but due to the relationship it made sense to switch to the same calendar.

Most large countries have multiple time zones, except for China. Every single point in China has the same time as Beijing, so even if it is obviously night time it is morning if the sun has risen in Beijing.

The International date line was invented so that middle aged men from England could meet with girls from The Philippines.

@mxlexrd: I noticed that. He should go back to maths school for 10 years. And do a Masters Degree in Maths at the very least.

That was just a fluke.

Yep he does put succinctly 😂

I think they took advice from some gentlemen called Wren and Newton as regards the present building.

The observatory is now in sussex in Herstmonceux .

@Sam Sprrr And, I believe the Isaac Newton telescope has emigrated to the Canaries. I am not sure what is left at Herstmonceux, but visited some years ago.

Don't set your watch by that great big sundial by the boat pond it is only accurate 6 months of the year and that's only if the sun comes out.

We all went lol

You're getting a bit mixed up here, the line at Greenwich is the meridian, the date line is the international date line on the opposite side of the world in the Pacific Ocean!

I remember Continental Airlines? advertising a 45min flight from Aust. to USA. Crossing the date line must have saved a lot of fuel, LOL.

Exactly, hence why on such maps Greenland often looks to be a similar size to Africa...when of course, Africa is actually about 14 times the size of Greenland.

First working train ran in Wales near Pontypridd.

@@timphillips9954 yes but for cargo mostly. It wasnt a regular passenger service. That was the Stockton & Darlington

Yeah the north west in LIVERPOOL had the first skyscraper,overhead railway and underwater tunnel I'm probably totally wrong but I'm sure I heard it somewhere or off someone???

@@martynnotman3467 Good point, it carried coal to Barry Island and Cardiff.

@@martynnotman3467 Darlington still has the longest continuous use railway bridge. It crosses the River Skerne. Trains use it daily on their run to Shildon.

True true I'm regular on that Greenwich Route.

And the toothbrush. Along with thousands of other inventions, like the steam engine. Curiously, they never came up with a steam-engine-driven toothbrush. Maybe at the next Industrial Revolution.

The Germans can’t sit down for their lunch until WE SAY it’s 1:00 p.m.

Everyone goes on about Newton discovering gravity. But here's the thing. He just discovered it. It was there to be discovered, they even leave it on at the weekends. But, the cat flap. Pure invention, an original thought. The rarest thing on the planet. Something from nothing! Same with the milled edged coin. Didn't exist, then it did. It was not already there to be discovered. ("Douglas Adams")

I thought that the Irish invented time, that's why it's called O'clock :-)

@@andypammenter8528 O'Course. Dat makes more sense.

Or even read the book.

yours is the nearest because it was also the moons affect on tides and were all of these things were happening at the same place and time. You would believe how small and hidden the conservatory is and unknown it is. Sorry can't remember the mans name. I couldn't believe it when I read the 10inx6in plaque said Sanded Time and Longitude and Latitude were worked out there to run threw London.

I'm sure the train was invented by Scott's

​@semesamaiyale4793 the steam engine was.

@@semesamaiyale4793 George Stephenson from Newcastle

"At the third stroke, it will be 1p.m. precisely, Pip! Pip! Pip!"

Yes, that was one of the biggest advantages of selecting Greenwich, it’s opposite to a very empty part of the Pacific.

All 'shipshape and Bristol fashion', too.

Maybe they are former colonies of Britain and would have a British based education.

Henry VIII 😁 use capital i’s.

Well, thats the French for you isn't it!

Lovely place

You can use it to go back in time too!

DST should just be dropped. I insist the sun be overhead at noon so I can more easily use my watch to find my way home!

That's what Phil Collins did in 1985, performing at Live Aid on both sides of the Atlantic, at London's Wembley Stadium and Philadelphia's JFK Stadium!

@@Bikeops2021 nice 1 man

A colleague in BBC Film Department was a cameraman on a documentary on Concorde during its development....prior to going into commercial service. He got to fly to Rio and back in rhe same day. Managed a breakfast and a lunch...and home with his family the same day!

@@ianpunter4486 It was a marvel. Can't wait to see the new they're building.

When Britain and France Built Concorde you could set your watch by the sonic boom made by the air France Concorde flying west I think it was to Rio at 1930 just south of the isle of wight

That's part of it, but the shape of the longitudinal lines in general, on those sorts of maps at least, are because they are typically projection maps (basically Earth treated as though it were a cylinder and rolled out to a flat plane...other projections also btw). However, it is therefore a distorted representation. Note how on such maps that Greenland often appears about the same size as Africa...when in reality Africa is about 14 times larger than Greenland or Alaska being similar in area to Brazil, when actually Brazil is about 5 times the size. Basically as latitude changes further away from the equator, then the greater the distortion appears on those sorts of maps and thus why lines of longitude have to have those square shapes drawn into them to make it look right. TLDR: mapping a 3D surface to a 2D plane like that results in those longitudinal lines being shaped like that to conform to the shape of the Earth...i.e. an oblate spheroid.

At least give Al Murray a mention, for ripping off his quote.......

In the north of Sweden and Finland there's a shared golf course where they hit the ball so hard that it lands an hour later :p

The US has 6 time zones 1 of them being almost 20 hours away ( Hawaii)

There is also quite a cool pub to visit after you have had a mooch around, and while you are waiting to catch the ferry back. If you miss the darn thing the only choice is a taxi or a bus, through some of the drabbest parts of London south of the river. Best time it well from the clock in the pub, the scenic river route is by far the best. It will drop you back at the embankment from where you can choose a multitude of directions to take on your way to dinner or a night out.

I have done this. I actually took a cab to North end of the Pedestrian tunnel and walked under the Thames. Emerged by the Cutty Sark and saw HMS Invincible sailing up the Thames. Visited the Royal Observatory, saw Harrison's wonderful chronometers, Spent most of the day in the Royal Naval Museum, had a few drinks with fellow Patrick O'brien fans. Great day out in a city I generally struggle to like.

I heard the ship was named after the whisky (not 'whiskey') to help the sailors find their way home after a night on the grog.

@@majorlaff8682 incorrect. The Cutty Sark ship was already sailing in the 1860’s and the whisky was introduced in the 1920’s. The ship was named after the flowing Scottish undergarment mentioned in an 18th century Robert Burns poem.

@@andrewbrumana3226 Sorry, Andrew. You're right, but it was a joke about drunken sailors. As I wrote, 'I heard ...'. When you read those words, never believe what follows. Shall I tell you how Golden Retrievers got their name?

Just found out via map men. That international date line's odd wobble is to allow easier trading with Australia and Zealand for some pacific islands as it make trading impossible on Friday or Monday because the weekend is in the way. Some it makes sense for them to be on the same day.

Athletically pleasing?

@regularguy3665 sorry aesthetically * It means it is more pleasing to the eye "pretty"

@@streamleazefishhouseI think that had been gathered. More's the point, how is it athletically pleasing 😁

Correct, although it wasn’t adapted by the rest of the world until after the 1884 Washington conference and as mentioned there was some resistance from other countries.

@@paulm2467 But you know it had to come.

@@chips1889 yep!

You watched Al Murray 🤣🤣🤣

And what time the French have le petit dejeune, lol!

The train stations used to have clocks with two second hands, one for local time and one for GMT. Bristol is about 30 minutes behind London (GMT)

Another classic GWR failure

@@bogusmogus9551 No such thing as a train station!

The H4 designed by John Harrison in 1753 and built by John Jefferys in 1755, it was meant to be a side piece to the H3 so ships captain’s could transfer the time from H3 to H4 for when they took the local midday position of the sun, but the H4 proved to be more accurate and less influenced by the ship’s movement.

I’ll say it again: where the zero meridian should be is nothing to do with the problem of how to determine your longitude. The clock solved the latter but positioning the zero line was a completely separate issue.

@@RexCorpuscle Think you replied to the wrong post 😜

@@C.CUMM1NGS No I didn’t. Greenwich didn’t get the meridian because of the clock. The clock solved a physical problem of locating one’s position at sea, which has nothing to do with the arbitrary choice of which meridian should be the zero.

@@RexCorpuscle Be careful correcting comments, these days you'll get cancelled.

Probably a European thing. History is Europe covers the world, not just my country USA Russia and China choose the alternative

The USA is insular.

@@barrymitchell6444As someone born and raised in the USA, I couldn’t agree with you more. There’s more to the world than ‘America’, which is also wrong. I have friends in Canada, Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago, and Greenland…all Americans! Happy to be living my life,outside of US borders, in Central Europe since 2017.

@@jamesf931 Each time I see or hear "America" or "USA" I hear and see The Star-Spangled Banner... and I'm English!!! Nothing wrong with being patriotic, but I imagine most American kids are brainwashed into believing the USA is the biggest and best, when neither is true. Pleased you and your friends are happy living outside of your country of birth now.