What potential issues can arise from incorrect timestamps in PHP applications?

Incorrect timestamps in PHP applications can lead to inaccurate data representation, incorrect sorting of records, and potential synchronization issues in distributed systems. To solve this issue, it is crucial to ensure that the server's timezone settings are correctly configured and that the timestamps are consistently generated and stored in a standardized format.

// Set the default timezone to UTC to ensure consistency
date_default_timezone_set('UTC');

// Generate a timestamp in a standardized format
$timestamp = date('Y-m-d H:i:s');