Final answer:
To find out the time at 115 degrees east when it is 8 am at 40 degrees west, add 10 hours and 20 minutes, resulting in 6:20 pm, and adjust the date since the International Date Line is crossed.
Step-by-step explanation:
This question involves the simple calculation of time differences based on longitude. Each hour in time difference corresponds to 15 degrees of longitude. To convert the time at 40 degrees west to 115 degrees east, we need to calculate the difference in degrees between these two longitudes and then convert that into time hours.
First, we sum up the degrees: 40 (west) + 115 (east) = 155 degrees. Then we divide by 15 to find out how many time zones we cross: 155 ÷ 15 = 10.33, which is approximately 10 hours and 20 minutes. Because we are moving from west to east, we add this time to the original time.
At 8 am at 40 degrees west, adding 10 hours and 20 minutes gives us 6:20 pm at 115 degrees east. However, since we are crossing the International Date Line, we need to add one day to the date as well.