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12pm doesn't exist
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People working on mars missions set their clocks to a 26ish hour day, so there's a 24:00 and a 25:00
And in broadcast, days run from 06:00 to 30:00 (which is why virtually every channel has a new programme starting at 6am). As long as everybody it affects is in agreement, it doesn't matter what times you actually use.
I once had a disagreement with someone who was adamant that 12 midnight until 12:59am was the last hour of the day, and that the new day didn't start until 01:00:00 because "numbers don't start with zero - if 12 o'clock was the first hour then it would be numbered '1'".
edwin_m
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It seems to be fashionable to count from zero these days - makes sense with time but when counting items it seems to have the major defect that if you count to five you've actually counted six things!
Mutant Lemming
Established Member
What about the dash between LNW and GW ?
edwin_m
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Busaholic
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Howardh
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Geezertronic
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When did the 21st Century start? 2000 or 2001?
*Ducks as well*
*Ducks as well*
edwin_m
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Why are there all these ducks on the thread all of a sudden? Someone needs to start another thread about ducks.
Peter Mugridge
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00.00:01 on 1st January 2001.
adrock1976
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As did the present millennium, due to having already completed the second set of one thousand years the previous day.
MidnightFlyer
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I thought we didn't do 0000 timings as it still melts timetable systems?
I don't know if it melts the timetable systems but it definitely avoids any ambiguity - no (reasonable) person could say that 2359 Monday and 0001 Tuesday aren't clear.
fairysdad
Member
So...
If 12pm is midnight (and, so, it would seem, is 12am), what does that make times betwen 1201 and 1259 (ie, the hour before one o'clock in the afternoon)?
(Slightly serious though - there may be some ambiguity over 12.00am and 12.00pm, but it seems more obvious that 12.15pm is in the afternoon and not the morning.)
If 12pm is midnight (and, so, it would seem, is 12am), what does that make times betwen 1201 and 1259 (ie, the hour before one o'clock in the afternoon)?
(Slightly serious though - there may be some ambiguity over 12.00am and 12.00pm, but it seems more obvious that 12.15pm is in the afternoon and not the morning.)
The point I was trying to make was that as the "m" in p.m. stands for meridian, i.e. noon or 12:00, then 12 pm (after noon) can only mean 2400, which I think was not what was intended. "Noon"and 12 midday are explicit, and "mid-day" is perfectly good for an estimate of the end of disruption. 12pm is not good in any way. I agree with fairysdad that that by the same argument 12 am is also 2400 (but at the start of the day being considered, again probably not what was intended!)
Re timetabling conventions, I found my old Cooks March 1983 Continental timetable and it explains the convention 2400 for an arrival and 0000 for a departure in the "how to use the timetable" pages."
I would say that 24:00 and 00:00 do both exist, but they refer to the same moment and when the context makes the meaning obvious there is no reason why they should not be used.
Re timetabling conventions, I found my old Cooks March 1983 Continental timetable and it explains the convention 2400 for an arrival and 0000 for a departure in the "how to use the timetable" pages."
I would say that 24:00 and 00:00 do both exist, but they refer to the same moment and when the context makes the meaning obvious there is no reason why they should not be used.
2400 should not be used for the simple reason of the seconds that follow. If 24:00.00 is valid then it's followed by 24:00.01, .02, etc and by convention there aren't more than 86400 seconds in a day.
Millisle
Member
These things have been computer driven, it seems to me. There may have been occasional colloquial use of12 am/pm when I was young in the '60s & '70s, though I do not recall it, but they were certainly never used in official and formal written contexts and would have been regarded as definitely wrong. As I think was noted above, BR twelve hour timetables had AM or PM at the head of the column based on originating departure time, but if that was actually 12 midday the column was headed Noon. Times had not acquired the cipher zero and what would now be typically 12.05pm (American 12:05pm) was 12.5pm. The maths teacher who taught the 24hr clock to us used 2400 exclusively for midnight itself. This, like noon/midnight and times without four numerals were things computer generated documents appear often not to have been programmed to like.
We were specifically taught that there was no such time as 2400.
Millisle
Member
It really has to as a matter of logic as there has to be a point at which the 24 hr day is completed, but I can live with 0000.
As I said above, while there's logic to 2400 being the end of the day, the problem is that you either end up with 2359.59, 2400.00, 0000.01 or the rather illogical 2359.59, 2400.00, 2400.01 - in which case what day does 2400.55 fall into?
Mutant Lemming
Established Member
Of all the Thameslink services that run between 23:59 and 00:01 none appear to call at a station at midnight.
(so Gladys could not have done a midnight train to Cricklewood)
(so Gladys could not have done a midnight train to Cricklewood)
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Millisle
Member
I agree that the first run of figures is indubitably correct, but as railway departures are attributed to the head of the minute a head of the minute departure at midnight could correctly be called 2400. I have (rarely) seen it on bus timetables.
BR were wise to evade the issue, no doubt to avoid late night fights on trains between drunken mathematicians.
Which makes the 0000 hour inconsistent as it doesn't have a .00 second.
Millisle
Member
That is indeed its sorrow.
Whereas, if 2359.59 is followed by 0000.00 then there's no inconsistency.
Peter Mugridge
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edwin_m
Veteran Member
As far as I can see the use of 0000 for midnight is universal, except in some rare instances when there is a need to indicate midnight at the end of a preceding day, and this is avoided wherever possible by not planning things to happen at midnight. I believe even military offensives are planned for 0001 - it would be a bit tragic if the artillery barrage came down a day too late...
But if, instead, it showed 24:00.00 for midnight the sequence would go: 23:59.59, 24:00.00, 00:01.01 - making 24 the 'odd hour out' since it would only be displayed for one second.
Geezertronic
Established Member
The 24 hour clock is 0 to 23 so 24 is irrelevant - or at least that is what I was taught
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