What is the difference between the current timestamp in the GMT time zone and the current timestamp in your local time zone?

Question

This is a sample question i found at ZEND php certificate practice test, the correct answer of this question is: " There is no difference between the current time in any time zone—the current time is an absolute point in time! " This answer is very odd and confusing.I don't understand why this answer is correct, actually I think it depends on the number of hours between the local time zone and GMT. Could anyone help in this?

Answer 1

They must have been referring to the unix timestamp. The unix timestamp is integer representing the number of seconds since the unix epoch -- which is defined as January 1, 1970 at midnight (00:00:00) in the GMT timezone.

So it doesn't matter what timezone you are in -- the unix timestamp is the same in all of them.

Answer 2

What it means is that a given point in time is the same point in time even if it is represented differently in different time zones.

For example, the time you posted this question is a single point in time, even though I may write it down differently than you since we are in different time zones.

Answer 3

It's basically a trick question. It would have been worded better as "current time" instead of "current timestamp".

The answer is saying that across the whole world it is only ever one specific point in time. We have different ways of representing that point in time across various time zones, but the actual specific point in time is the same everywhere else on Earth as it is here.