# Question about Epoch

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-epoch/97115>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 5, 2006, 12:07am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-epoch/97115 "2006-07-05T00:07:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/e99b99/32.png) [@zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zanoni)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2006, 12:07am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-epoch/97115/1 "2006-07-05T00:07:46Z")

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I’m under the impression at Epoch is January 1, 1970 00:00:00  
yet in irb I do Time.at(0) and it returns:  
=\> Wed Dec 31 17:00:00 Mountain Standard Time 1969

Is the five hour difference MST -\> GMT ?

TIA  
Stuart

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**Author:** ![zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/e99b99/32.png) [@zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zanoni)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2006, 12:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-epoch/97115/2 "2006-07-05T00:14:11Z")

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Dark A. wrote:

> I’m under the impression at Epoch is January 1, 1970 00:00:00  
> yet in irb I do Time.at(0) and it returns:  
> =\> Wed Dec 31 17:00:00 Mountain Standard Time 1969
> 
> Is the five hour difference MST -\> GMT ?

Yes.

Hal

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**Author:** ![zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/e99b99/32.png) [@zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zanoni)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2006, 12:17am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-epoch/97115/3 "2006-07-05T00:17:21Z")

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On Wed, 5 Jul 2006, Dark A. wrote:

> I’m under the impression at Epoch is January 1, 1970 00:00:00  
> yet in irb I do Time.at(0) and it returns:  
> =\> Wed Dec 31 17:00:00 Mountain Standard Time 1969
> 
> Is the five hour difference MST -\> GMT ?
> 
> TIA  
> Stuart

yup.

mussel:~ \> ruby -e’ p Time.at(0).utc ’  
Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 UTC 1970

-a

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/e99b99/32.png) [@zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zanoni)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2006, 12:26am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-epoch/97115/4 "2006-07-05T00:26:47Z")

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errr…7 hour difference, just to correct myself, but got it ! Thanks.

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**Author:** ![zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/e99b99/32.png) [@zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zanoni)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2006, 7:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-epoch/97115/5 "2006-07-06T07:27:45Z")

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On Wed, Jul 05, 2006 at 07:05:31AM +0900, Dark A. wrote:

> I’m under the impression at Epoch is January 1, 1970 00:00:00  
> yet in irb I do Time.at(0) and it returns:  
> =\> Wed Dec 31 17:00:00 Mountain Standard Time 1969
> 
> Is the five hour difference MST -\> GMT ?

Err…seven hours? Yes, that’s the MST -\> GMT difference.

Steve P.  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid