If we destroyed the Earth..

[Yub]

and loaded the population of Earth into a giant spaceship [not unlike the Dr Who ep The Beast Below] would the ship be so big that there would be timezones? Or would there be one shipwide time?

Forget that we probably couldn't build a ship to house 4 billion people [I'm guessing that Africa and most of South America and probably a fair chunk of Russia and various dissenters would be left, probably a rough 3 billion].

 

[StringTheorist]

There won't be day/night cycling, the ship isn't going to be rotating about itself, therefore no time zones. Otherwise, if there was a planet that was rotating around itself and the Sun, even if it weights 1 kg and is smaller than 20 cm on radius, it would still have timezones. Size matters not.

 

[SAUSAGEMAN]

In this thread, Yub shows he doesn't understand why timezones exist.

 

[Hambil]

I disagree. I think timezones would exist in a ship that size. It makes sense as a way to load balance things like food distribution (people would be eating at different times instead of 3 billion - or 1.5 billion if you did day night shifts - all sitting down to supper and demanding food at once). And that's just one example. You would not have to use timezones specifically to load balance - any breakdown would do, but they are a familiar breakdown and would also help with the transition for people.

 

[Yub]

In this thread, Yub shows he doesn't understand why timezones exist.

Look at you, being all snarky. That time of the month, is it?

 

[SAUSAGEMAN]

It's always that time of the month for me, darling.

 

[CaptainWacky]

Scotland would want their own ship.

 

[Dr Dave]

The ship would run on a 24 hr clock.

 

[Gagh]

Alex Salmond would claim that Scotland wants their own ship.

I fixed that for you, Wacky

 

[Donovan]

We wouldn't really have a ship to house that many. We would build a much smaller ship in the parking lot of a Walmart Supercenter, with the doors to the walmart disguised as part of the ship. Then, when we loaded up, we would send all of "certain" lucky passengers thru those doors and instead of being onboard they'd just be at Walmart. The familiarity of their surroundings would make them feel comfortable so they would not become suspicious while we loaded up the real ship and took off.

And even if they figured it out they'd be happy, because it's Walmart and there's a sale on...