Midnight! does it exist?

[mjw47 10]

But their first birthday was when they popped out. When they celebrate the first anniversary of this event it's really their second birthday. Of course nobody calls it as such, including me.

 

That's probably because we say Happy Birthday you're one year old today.

 

All birthdays are celebrations of having lived another twelve months and if we want to be pedantic ( which I'd rather we weren't ) should be called something along the lines of 'First anniversary Celebration' 'Forty fifth Anniversary Celebration' etc.

 

Let's stick with tradition on this one.

[Phanerothyme 12]

We are not all insane, it has already been pointed out that midday is 12 o clock in the afternoon, when the sun is out, and 12 o clock midnight is at night, when the moon is out.

 

WTF has the moon to do with any of this? What about if you're within the arctic or antarctic circles?

 

"It can't be midnight, the sun is out"

or

"It can't be midday, as it's completely dark"

 

My definition was precise and correct. Yours was steaming pile of cack, useless to anyone.

[mjw47 10]

WTF has the moon to do with any of this? What about if you're within the arctic or antarctic circles?

 

"It can't be midnight, the sun is out"

or

"It can't be midday, as it's completely dark"

 

My definition was precise and correct. Yours was steaming pile of cack, useless to anyone.

 

You silver tongued little devil you.

 

You are a serious loss to the diplomatic corp, had you joined at an early enough age you could have been ambassador to the Ukraine by now.

 

As I was on the Sheffield Forum I gave no thought whatsoever to the inhabitants of either Arctic area nor indeed to the citizens of Ulan Bator.

 

Obviously, this was extremely remiss of me and I shall take care not to allow it to happen again, you complete numpty.

[RootsBooster 24]

There are a multitude of things where we start with 0. Measurements is the primary one, which includes time. A stopwatch doesn't start on 1 minute. It starts at 0:00:00.000000. If you hit start/stop quickly enough that it doesn't count, you'll have a time of zero.

 

If you're timing a race, at the very moment you start, what distance have you run?

I didn't say we don't start with zero, I said you can't count it as a unit of time:

"How on Earth is it logical to put 12 before 1 or include 0 as a number?"

What number do we start counting minutes at in each hour? And if you say it's illogical to start with 12 rather than 1, why is half past the first hour of a day 12:30am? 12 hours have not elapsed that day, none have. But we still write 12, because that's what is written on our clocks.

It isn't half past the first hour of the day, it's half way into the first hour of the day. It's half past the previous hour.

 

When you work out how many days you've been working on something, how many days have elapsed before the end of the first one?

 

When you go shopping, what number does the till start counting from?

 

Counting from zero is everywhere.

 

If you don't count from zero, confusion regins - where would you start counting where it comes to time? 1 hour? 1 minute? 1 millennia?

See the first line of this post.

 

 

See post #59

Again, where are your 'rules' from?

 

 

 

Only if the first or final second has no duration.

How can a second have no duration? each one lasts a second. True story.

The day doesn't end on 23:59:59, it ends after 23:59:59.99999999999999999999999999999999... 24:00 and 00:00 +1d are the same moment in time, but different values.

The day ends when the final hour is completed at 24:00, that's why it's a 24 hour day. I agree, if you're going to have a zero in yourset of numbers it shares the same spot as 24:00, but it has no duration and does not remove any time from the end of that new day, which will again end at 24 complete hours.

 

When we reach the first dot, how many dots have we passed?

 

When we reach the final dot, how many dots have passed?

I'm not sure if you deliberately worded those two lines differently, but as they are, they are not quite comparable. If they are reworded the same...

 

"When we reach the first dot, how many dots have passed?

 

When we reach the final dot, how many dots have passed?"

 

Then the answers is that for the former, one dot has passed, for the latter, 60 dots have passed. If by "passed" we are referring to counted.

 

 

 

No, we start with zero and count up to 59. Just before we get to 60, we add one on to the minute value and reset to zero.

 

Or are you seriously suggesting we go: 01:56, 01:57, 01:58, 01:59, 01:60, 02:01, 02:02, 02:03???

No, we don't reset to zero, we go on to the next value, which the sum completes. It's the same when dealing with tens and units, after nine we don't reset to a zero, we go to ten, which completes the first ten units. Then we go on to the teens.

 

 

 

But that's how time works. When we look at a clock, the day begins at 12:00 (0000), not 12:01, not 12:00:01.

See the first line of this post

 

 

 

No, he said 13:00pm was 01:00am the following day. Which it is. 13:00am would be 01:00 + 1/2 a day.

We're talking about a 24 hour day, 13:00pm on the twelve hour clock would be more than 24hrs.

 

 

I realise that the multiquote thing is getting out of hand now so in future responses I'm going to try and condense things down a bit and only pick out the important bits, if you feel I'm ignoring or missing something let me know !

 

---------- Post added 24-11-2014 at 10:21 ----------

 

STREWTH!

 

You're all insane.

 

Midnight exists.

 

Midnight is the moment when the sun is at exactly your longitude , plus or minus 180°.

 

Midday is when the sun is exactly at your longitude. When it is highest in the sky.

 

Midnight is the exact opposite - when the sun is at it's lowest and most fully obscured by the planet.

What yer quoting ME for? I didn't even mention midnight or midday!

[Lockjaw 11]

So what your saying is that it would be more appropriate to stay happy first anniversary of your birthday, then happy second anniversary of your birthday, and so on and so forth.

 

Which is, of course, how the French express it.

 

So where does that leave us?

[RootsBooster 24]

How many years has someone spent alive when they celebrate their 100th birthday?

100

But some are saying it's 99 years [and nine months].

That's just silly, who's saying that?

The 100 means it's the start of their 100th year, not that 100 years have elapsed since their birth.

The 100 mark (birthday, short for anniversary of the day you were born) is the completion of their 100 years of living.

[Jeffrey Shaw 90]

Midnight is not 12:00 it is 00:00.

Or it's 24:00