Talk:Midnight/Archive 1

Is it midnight now?
How can one determine it is solar midnight without any kind of time-measuring object on one's hand and no knowledge of when the solar midnight, in relation to the time observed by these absent objects, would be? That's something that could make the article more rich. 9:04 am 19/10/2006
 * From memory, the moon moves horizontally across the sky at night, as do the stars. It would also make sense that as at somewhere such as the equator, where the days are 12 hours long fairly consistently, the nights are also 12 hours. As midday is where the Sun is directly overhead i.e. in the middle of its course, one could assume that midnight is the middle point of the night as well. Therefore, the stars/moon would be exactly halfway through the movements of the night, and over the course of two nights (ignoring very little differences) one could calculate roughly when midnight is. tom12519 21:53, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

deadlines
If they say "deadline is: 18 jun, midnight". Does it mean - night 17-18 or night 18-19?
 * It can mean both. See the new section "Start and end of day" for a detailed discussion of commonly used solutions to this problem. My understanding is that in case a formal agreement or contract contains an ambiguity like this, in many jurisdictions, the party who drafted the contract may have to accept either interpretation by others. Goal of this principle is that noone should be able to gain anything by deliberately being ambiguous. Markus Kuhn 11:40, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I was under the impression that midnight began a day; that is, midnight of June 18th is very early morning of June 18th. Consider this: Midnight is equal to 12:00 AM. Suppose that, in fact, midnight occured at the very, very end of a day. That is, suppose that midnight on June the 18th was the very last minute of the day, and one minute later, it would be June the 19th. That would mean that 12:01 would be the very first minute of the 19th. Is it not that the day would begin with :00 and not :01? That would mean that the first hour of a day would be 12:01, 12:02, 12:03, …, 12:59, 1:00 AM. That is, 1:00 would not begin the second hour of the day. It would still be part of a series which is almost entirely comprised of 12s, except for 1:00. By proof of contradiction, and a bit of logic, 1:00 cannot be included in that series; it must begin the second hour, which pushes 12:00 AM forward to the next day. I hope this is clear; I've never been very good at explaining that even though I try to do it a lot. Fbv65edel 01:50, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I’m not sure I follow your argument all the way through, Fbv65edel. I know I’m fighting a losing battle, but I have always believed, and still do, that midnight should be 12:00 p.m., that it should be unambiguously the end of a day. The next day begins the moment after. 1:00 a.m. is the end point of the first hour of the new day. My arguments: (1) Think back to a time when only the concept of hours existed, when minutes had not yet been thought of. Twelve is the end of the series. (2) It is similar to years, in that 2000 was officially the last year of the 20th century (even though it’s the only year of the 20th century not beginning with 19), and 2001 the first year of the new century. Series end on the even numbers—the last number of the series (12 in the case of hours, a multiple of 100 in the case of centuries) because we started counting at 1. (3) I would also suggest that if we are speaking in normal English, rather than analyzing the matter, “midnight Monday” would be understood by most people to be late Monday. I concede that I have never seen a digital clock call midnight 12:00 p.m. (or call noon 12:00 a.m.), as I think they should. -- Nina, 24 February 2006


 * If midnight is 12:00:00 PM, is the first second after midnight, which is unambigously part of the next day, 12:00:01 PM? That wdoesn't make sense to me.  Twelve is the end of the series where antiquated concepts such as the efficiency of a 12-hour clock is considered seriously.  With the 24-hour clock, there are are 24 hours numbered from 0-23, and 23 "is the end of the series" (except for those who continue to complicate the issue by calling the first hour of a new day "24").  With the 24-hour clock (enumerated properly), there is no wasting of time with this argument. 2404 20:47, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Considering midnight as the endpoint of the day: If midnight were 12:00 p.m. Monday, then one second after would be 12:00:01 a.m. Tuesday. In a 24-hour system, one second after 24:00:00 Monday would be 00:00:01 Tuesday. The article states: “In the 24-hour time notation, the solution is very simple: ‘00:00’ refers to the start and ‘24:00’ to the end of a given date. In other words, ‘today at 24:00’ is the same point in time as ‘tomorrow at 00:00’.” By this reasoning, calling midnight “12 o’clock,” rather than “0 o’clock,” makes it, like 24, the end of a series, so logically part of the day that’s ending. The concept of midnight is ambiguous only because we haven’t come to a consensus on it, as we have with many other things that would have been ambiguous if we hadn’t decided to define them specifically. Actually, I thought it had once been decided that midnight was the endpoint of the day, but I haven’t been able to find evidence that this was once the accepted notion of midnight. -- Nina, 13 November 2006

see, if midnight were at the end of the day, it would seem fairly odd that the minute after 11:59 PM becomes 12:00 AM. Why the change in PM to AM if midnight were simply the same day as 11:59 PM? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.62.12.173 (talk) 01:48, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article on Noon states the following:

“Confusion between AM & PM when referring to Noon and Midnight: Note that 12 PM (to signify noon) and 12 AM (to signify midnight) is confusing, even if that's the way most digital clocks read. Here's the confusion: 8AM, 9AM, 10AM, 11AM -- one might think the next logical number is 12AM. Also, many associate ‘PM’ with ‘night’ in general, so someone unfamiliar with this notation would think that ‘12PM’ is at night and is therefore midnight. … ¶The US Government Printing Office Style Manual says to use 12:00 a.m. to mean noon and 12:00 p.m. to mean midnight.[2]” http://www.gpoaccess.gov/stylemanual/2000/chapter_txt-9.html

I had always thought that it was once agreed that midnight was officially 12 p.m. and noon 12 a.m., but I couldn’t find a reference, but here is one. I would also say to User 2404 that normal practice is to begin counting at 1, not 0. – Nina, 4 January 2007

One way to rationalize the system used by electric clocks is this: 12:01 AM is right after midnight. 1:00 and 1:01 and similar pairs are always either AM or PM together. It would be weird for the AM/PM sign on your digital clock to switch at an :01. 24.183.47.252 02:31, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm with Nina on this. I know logically that midnight is both the end of one day & the start of the next but I don't know anyone who refers to midnight as the start of a day. Here is a simple question: if you were to ask someone when does New Year occur, would you not expect them to answer midnight Dec 31st? Would the answer be different in other languages/cultures? (Yes I know many other cultures have a different New Year anyway. I just want to know is midnight considered to be at the end or beginning of the day.)(I also agree with Marcus that where contracts are concerned there can be no room for ambiguity.)

I have to say I think The US Government Printing Office Style Manual is guilty of not citing its sources. I 'associate' ‘PM’ with afternoon (which is hardly surprising as this is what it literally means), and evening. Most of my night (ie. when I'm asleep) is 'am'. So here's my suggestion: 12hr     24hr 12:00  = 12:00 12:00am = 00:00 12:00pm = 24:00 Dyaimz 21:29, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * PM is afternoon. Midnight is 0000 hours. 0000 would mean that it is, in fact, the first minute of the day and if you were to hypothetically have a first day of the world, it would in fact be before the first midday, hence 0000 am, or 12am on a standard 12 hour analogue clock. Logically it stands that if every time is followed by either "am" or "pm" and you have two 12 o'clocks, one of which signifies the beginning of the afternoon (it is midday for a slight fraction of a second that needn't be counted by a normal clock) that it should bear the suffix of "pm" as opposed to introducing a new "m" time for one minute of the day. tom12519 05:59, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Why the "Midnight" in several western languages?
What is the point of this section? We don't have a similar section in Butter, Communism or Physics. I'd like to remove this section; any objections? --Bletch 04:18, 17 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Are you refering to the section in the discussion page that this is written in ot the article itself? If it is the article, then I highly object.Solon Olrek 04:34, 14 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Allow me to object too. I'd also like to add that in Hungarian the word for midnight "éjfél" does line up with "half-night" but has nothing to do with north which is "éjszak". The common ground éj means night, is also called éjszaka. As you can see, languages do have a story to tell. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.119.23.223 (talk) 06:58, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

sources?
does something like this need sources? it's preety much either public domain or would have no specific/substaintial sources......--Bud0011 20:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Christian folklore

 * Not all cultural beliefs in midnight make it evil. Because midnight marks the transition from one day to the next, in Christian folklore, midnight on Halloween is the end of it, the point at which the ghosts and evil spirits lose their power with the transition to All Saints' Day.

I have removed the passage quoted above about Christian folklore. According to the recent book At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, by A. Roger Ekirch (pp. 138-140), the period between midnight and first cock crow (circa 3 a.m.) was considered the "dead of night," when evil spirits were most likely to prowl:
 * Not just boggarts and witches but the devil himself freely roamed his reign on earth lasting until cock crow, when, warned of the day's approach, demons took flight much as the ghost in Hamlet (ca. 1601). "Then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad," observed the character Marcellus. This belief was at least as old as the fourth-century writings of the Spanish poet Prudentius. According to the Newcastle antiquary Henry Bourne, centuries later, "Hence, it is, that in country places, where the way of life requires early labour, they always go cheerfully to work at that time [cock crow]; whereas if they are called abroad sooner, they are apt to imagine every thing they see or hear, to be a wandring ghost." Worse was to frequent those hours on certain nights of the year. All Hallows' Eve and the Eve of St. John (Midsummer Eve) in the British Isles, for example . . ..

From the end of the Roman era until about the 16th century, when town clocks became widespread, the day was reckoned to begin at sundown or sunrise, not at midnight. — Walloon 13:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

In some semi-christian cultures, (though I am at a loss for names at this moment) demonic creatures, ghosts, ghouls, and other souch evil creatures are believed to come out as soon as the sun is no longer visible, and roam abroad until the grey of dawn. EX: Goth-Christians Solon Olrek 18:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Fictional character
Shouldn't that be a separate article? The rest of this article is referring to the time. Cfrydj 17:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this should be a seperate article. The fictional character named Midnight has nothing to do with this article, which is about the time.142.167.133.176 04:54, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Ambiguity of 12 a.m. and 12 p.m.
According to the de facto convention (which is used by all digital clocks, computers, and Web pages -- I can't imagine it otherwise, anyway), 12 a.m. is midnight at the beginning of the day and 12 p.m. is noon. It's very simple. It amounts to no more than learning a word. If you don't know what a word means, you look it up in a reference! Anyway, it would be extremely impractical to rewrite all software and firmware to display noon and midnight at 12:00, and it would also be silly, as 12:00 is displayed for a full minute, so noon and midnight would only "properly" be displayed for an instant. This is one reason for the de facto convention. Also, the de facto convention is logical, sensible, and mathematical. Simply consider, for the sake of argument, that 12 means zero, a.m. means zero, and p.m. means one. Then the de facto convention follows the normal rollover rules for times and numbers. When the minutes "column" goes from 59 to 00, the hour is incremented by one. When the hours column goes from 11 to 12, the a.m./p.m. column is "incremented by one", that is, changed to the other. When the a.m./p.m. value goes from p.m. to a.m. (1 to 0), the day is incremented. You may object by saying that it is in the wrong place, but so is the year in our date format. In the "right order" the date/time would be

yyyy-mmm-dd am/pm hh:mm:ss

It is because of this "mathematics" that digital clocks (including system clocks in computers) use this convention.

A very easy way to remember the de facto convention is as follows: 12:00 am and 12:01 am are one minute apart, and 12:00 p.m. and 12:01 p.m. are one minute apart. So whenever you forget, just think of what it would be one minute later at 12:01. Whatever it is at 12:01, that's what it is one minute earlier at 12:00. So if you find, for example, a file on your computer with a time of 12:00 a.m., just think of what 12:01 a.m. would be. It would be one minute after midnight. Therefore, the file is dated midnight. See! Easy! Just like the test for who and whom.

While not yet officially recognized, the de facto convention has "literally" taken over the a.m./p.m. world and it is a good idea to learn it. Words and terms evolve. The second has been redefined at least twice. The meter has been redefined three times! Pretty much all words and terms have evolved. I see no reason to make an exception for ante meridiem and post meridiem, terms that were invented hundreds of years ago when the time was "Local Solar Time". Since then, timekeeping has evolved to use standard time and time zones, daylight time, atomic timekeeping, leap seconds, and such. It's high time that a.m. and p.m. were "officially" allowed to catch up. IOW, why should these terms alone be etched in stone for all eterninty, when no other words or terms suffer the same fate?

Then there is the issue of AD and BC. Since we don't know when Christ was born, we don't really know what AD year it is. Scholars generally agree that Christ was born in 4 BC or earlier. This means that the current numbering is wrong and we don't know what the correct numbering would be. But even if we did know the correct numbering, it would certainly be confusing to renumber all the years! Therefore, the type of reasoning that makes 12:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. "illegitimate" also makes AD and BC "illegitimate" for all years. So if one is going to insist that 12 a.m. and 12 p.m. are no good, then by consistency one must also say the same for AD and BC for all years. And certainly we are not going to do that. Like or not, the de facto convention has taken over. When people come across a time of 12 a.m. or 12 p.m. on a computer or on the Internet, they need to know what it means. Therefore, it should be explained by references, and I sincerely hope one day that NIST and other similar organizations bless it one day or at least explain what it is on their Web sites. People need to know!

--Alan E. Feldman 2007/02/05 3:33 UTC.

One more thing: The text currently implies that a period of one second is the shortest interval of time. Say what? That's VERY WRONG. Alan E. Feldman 2007/02/05 3:35 UTC


 * Your appeal to AD/BC is interesting because not only is our reference point 1 AD unsure, most people don't know or care that there is contention over the term "0 AD". This resonates with representations of midnight.
 * Your argument though is basically ad populum and relies on the (incorrect) premise that the world must agree to use one system. Scientists, engineers and programmers interested in accuracy and precision are going to use a system like 0-based 24h time. Clock radio manufacturers, the media, social organizers and others who are interested in accessibility and social utility will use a traditional system like 1-based 12h time. DLeonard (talk) 16:36, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Official position of U.S. government on noon and midnight ambiguity
I moved this link from the text to the external links section. Previously, it was claimed that the page contained the official position of the U.S. government. While the web page is on a government agency's website, there is nothing to indicate that it is the government's official position. In fact, it is very likely that the page was not meant to serve as the government's official position. The web page is an FAQ. These are often found on government websites, but they are not official documents. In addition, the page does not reference any official documents, or any documents at all for that matter. It is much more likely that the page is the position of one or more government employees given the task of creating an FAQ for the agency's website. It is possible that the contents of the page are in line with the official government position (the page does not make this claim), but we cannot assume that it is without more evidence. Finally, it is possible that there is no official government position on the matter. -- Kjkolb 03:42, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Look at this in the U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual noon is 12:00 a.m. and midnight 12:00 p.m.!!! Zginder 19:25, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

ISO 8601
According to ISO 8601 00:00 is midnight at the start of the day and 24:00 midnight at the end. Midnight is sadly not currently defined as part of one day but two. The article should clearly say that. Zginder 01:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Time assessment rating comment
Want to help write or improve articles about Time? Join WikiProject Time or visit the Time Portal for a list of articles that need improving.

—Yamara ✉  08:42, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

sacrum?
In the article it says midnight is "when sacrum manifests itself", but that link refers to part of the pelvis bone. From personal experience, my sacrum is manifest most of the day, so perhaps the reference is wrong. But I could not determine what it should be changed to? DLeonard (talk) 15:46, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Nice work spotting a problem that's gone unfixed for over 4 years . I've left a note on the talk page of the editor who added this, but he hasn't edited since 2007 so I doubt we'll get a response any time soon.  I suspect he might have meant "sacral", which has a similar meaning to "sacred", but since we can't be sure I've removed the section for now. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 07:47, 4 June 2009 (UTC) PS. Glad you're editing again :-)
 * Thanks for notifying me, Adrian. So you made me edit again ;) Sorry for delay, though - I've been using the beta and it seems that it doesn't relay the notifications on new messages. As for article, I re-introduced deleted fragment, this time with correct link to sacred. I meant sacrum as opposed to profanum in its earlier meaning: "not belonging to sacred, mundane". Also, I added reference for the whole section - I hope I did it right - if not, please correct the syntax. Forseti (talk) 11:19, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks Forseti. The reference syntax is correct.  Does that one reference support the above four paragraphs, in their current form?  If so that's probably worth indicating, though I'm not sure of the best way to do that.
 * When you say "traditional magical thinking", it's a little unclear what tradition is referred to – is it traditional European magical thinking? I presume there would be a better descriptor than "European", though of course I can't read the reference.  Same goes for Noon. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 15:03, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, you're right, Adrian. The whole section is based on 5th reference and I see it's now set up as it should be. As for "traditional magical thinking": I'd have to refresh my memory to ascertain (I've read the Kowalski's book some time ago) but I have impression that it deals with magical thinking common in non-modern societies. It's akin to Fraser's "Golden Bough" but with evidence taken from Slavic territories mainly (thus more credible than Fraser's I suppose ;) ) and structured as lexicon. Regards Forseti (talk) 22:13, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Double-counting??
I could probably research this, but figured I would just ask as part of the discussion. "In 24-hour time notation, "00:00" and "00:00:00" refer to midnight at the start of a given date. Some styles, such as ISO 8601, allow 24:00 to refer to the end of a day. Noon is 12:00:00." If you start at 00:00:00 and end at 24:00:00 isn't that double counting the first/last second. With these end points, you would have 86,401 seconds in a day. Wouldn't you have to either start at 00:00:01 or end at 23:59:59? Please help me understand. DeGarmo2 (talk) 14:39, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Delete the Cultural Speculative
There is nothing there except ramblings and speculation, not one solid footnote, please delete this crap. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.178.134.65 (talk) 18:38, 27 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Done 66.31.201.119 (talk) 12:48, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Synonym for midnight
On November 8, 2011, I made up the synonym for midnight — nove. Nove comes from the Latin word novus meaning "new" because it is the moment of time when a new day begins. Nove would be the direct opposite of noon while midnight is the direct opposite of midday. Nove shall pass on to the literature and would be a useful alternative for midnight. I would call the moment of time when the sun reaches nadir solar nove and solar midnight and shall be shortened to just midnight. So midnight shall be a term when it is the heart of the night equidistant between sunset and sunrise, same thing for midday when it is the heart of the day equidistant between sunrise and sunset.

A six-hour period preceeding nove would be called forenove while a six-hour period suceeding nove would be called afternove. For more info, see merose on my wiki-site. BlueEarth (talk | contribs) 22:45, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Start and end of day
But whether we represent midnight as 00:00:00 or 24:00:00 on the 24 hour clock, which day is it in? Is it the day that's just ended or the day that's just beginning? -- SteveCrook (talk) 23:55, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Nobody seems to know :) -- SteveCrook (talk) 09:49, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it is safe to say that for people celebrating new year's it is the old year before midnight and the new year as soon as midnight arrives. - JefiKnight (talk) 04:09, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Both?Robinrobin (talk) 13:39, 4 April 2016 (UTC) Question: shouldn't there be some reference as to when midnight was adopted to be the time of the change of day? The Bible documents that the day begins and ends with sunset. Jews and others that follow the seventh day Sabbath also use sunset to mark the start and end of days. N7912w (talk) 00:44, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Photo at top of page
The image at the top of the page is captioned "A photo taken at midnight" but that is not true. the image pictures a full moon which means that it must be directly opposite the sun. Since the sun is directly beneath he ground at midnight, the moon must be directly overhead when it is full at midnight. However, this picture was clearly taken at an angle as indicated by the tree and the faint horizon.65.25.111.125 (talk) 17:03, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
 * This stuff is more complicated than you think. The Sun does not need to be directly beneath the ground at midnight.  I live in Australia, and the Sun will never be directly below me.  Just imagine a line going from Australia, through the centre of the Earth, and out the other side.  That line is not within the plane in which the Earth orbits the Sun. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 05:36, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I refer the contributor who questions the veracity of the photograph to the entry on "Moon", which explains that the Moon only ever appears directly overhead to an observer on Earth "at latitudes up to 28° from the equator". Beyond that, it could indeed appear as in the photograph, but it would be helpful to know exactly where it was taken. Blurryman (talk) 19:25, 22 December 2015 (UTC)