Re: Military time (whoops!)

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Brian.Henderson@xxxxxxxx wrote:
> If 12 midnight belongs to finishing day,
> then I would think 24:00 would be appropriate,
> and the next second would be 00:01. Only if
> midnight is considered to be the beginning
> of the day does it make sense for it to be 00:00.
That's logical, but we've seen that midnight is in fact
0000 (zero hours). Given that, I'd be perfectly willing
to count midnight with the next day. BUT there HAS to a
consistent convention about it. If the New York Times
says "Midnight June 20" meaning the moment between 2359
on 6/20 and 0001 on 6/21, but the Washington Post says
the same thing but means the moment between 2359 on
6/19 and 0001 on 6/20, we have a real failure to
communicate. (And a nightmare for future historians.
Old Style-New Style calendars will be child's play by
comparison.)
> Is there any "official" determination about
> which day midnight belongs to?
It would probably be up to some international standards
body to make such a determination. Don't we have a
member at the National Observatory?
I'm pretty sure I've heard of a utility that syncs your
PC's clock with the National Observatory's atomic one.
(Thought it might be part of U2, but cannot find it, so
I must have imagined it. It does exist, I'm sure). One
could try running that at midnight and see what it says.
--
Patricia M. Godfrey
PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx