12 noon

I think you’re still right. I thought naming midnight was a six of one and half a dozen of the other but now I think strictly by logic the stronger case is for midnight being pm.

It’s a redundant saying. Another example: RHIB boat.

Some funny ones listed here.

  1. Plan ahead: To plan is to prepare for the future. Ahead is extraneous.
  1. Suddenly exploded: An explosion is an immediate event. It cannot be any more sudden than it is.
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Indeed, it has been entertaining watching people get wound up over time [puns intended]

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I think the whole discussion would have been much better sitting around a bar with jaw lube being liberally applied.

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At a certain point in life boredom takes the place of jaw lube. Which is why I am embarking on a new building project.

TWIC card

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PIN number
Stupid idiot

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I think it’s “Beer O’Clock”

The “m” in am and pm means meridiem not meridan.

That’s what I said:

In English the Sun crosses your MERIDIAN at True Noon, while AM/PM originate from the Latin MERIDIEM-

The sun also crosses your MERIDIAN at True Midnight (NADIR) but you don’t see that unless you are North of the Arctic Circle, or South of the Antarctic Circle at high summer.

PS> If you are at the geographical North Pole you can see it already now, since the only sunrise of the year just happened (aka EQUINOX in Latin)

PPS> We are straying from the OP’s question so we better quite, before you shut this thread for being OT. (I’m sure you can find something I have said wrong somewhere else) :laughing:

It’s interesting how the experienced programmers at StackExchange see this problem as a simple overflow problem.

An example of overflow is when an odometer reaches it’s maximum and resets to zero. For a typical clock the highest number it can reach is 12 so the next increment after 12 is when the overflow condition is created.

If the switch between am/pm is intended to indicate an overflow condition exists than that doesn’t happen till after midnight or after noontime.

The other issue is that for the most part the ancients had no concept or symbol for zero.

Once the switch is made to a zero-based 24-hr system those problems are solved.

image

Here’s the original question on StackExchange:

One hour after 11:00 am is 12:00 pm. I find this to be very strange. Why isn’t it 12:00 am?

More descriptively, I thought we can think of the am/pm part as time unit representing higher amount than the numerical part. If so, it would be representing 12 hours time unit, and it switches after numerical overflows 12. Then, 11:00 am + 1 hour should be 12:00 am or 0:00 pm, not 12:00 pm. What knowledge am I missing?

although I haven’t been EVERYWHERE i believe most of the world uses a 24 hr. scale. If I had to guess it would be americans that started the am pm thing? the 1900’s are known as the 20th centrury right? 20th century fox etc. When JFK was prompted to say …“man on moon by end of decade” the end of the decade would of actually been 1 Jan 1970 leaving some lee way.
as for the seconds … as per above 11:59:59 still isn’t over till 12:00:00 so if logic prevails it’s still noon till 12:00:01, as for midnight 12:00:01 (am) so if in my brief detested thinking of this with 2 sips of coffee there is never a morning?

I’m now mourning the fact that I ever started this.
Noon, Midnight, 1200, 2400
Lets all go to Alesund and drink expensive beer in a 24 hr bar, and look at the sun at midnight.
We are only right until some other Media or govt arsehole changes it

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Does the Zulu clockstill work if you are Swahili or Hutu

All I know is that if I ever have a midnight ETA, that is reported as 0001 so there is no confusion as to which date I will actually be there.

I feel your pain. 3 days ago I asked the question below. I KNEW this would happen. But it has been a little educational. I now know more about time than I will ever need and I only read half the replies.

“Why can’t 12 noon just be 1200 and 12 hours later the time will be 2400?
[ I’ll probably regret asking that]”

Oh, I wasn’t responding to you, I assumed it was a rhetorical question.

The answer depends on the context, there will be many cases where using 2400 is going to be preferred / acceptable.

The ISO standards are not relevant to very many people, mostly programmers I suspect.

.

For the Mathematicians among us:

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So, a decade has ten years, counted as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Seems to end with a zero, eh.

Unless the CE started with a year zero instead of a year one, then decades, centuries and millenniums end with the end of the tenth year in that sequence.

But further discussion of this technicality is just as nugatory as the discussion of noon as am or pm.