It is wild how people refuse to use the 24 hour clock. It is so logical and easy. kind of like the metric system……
First thing I change on every electronic device I buy.
And really annoying when something only has 12hr mode
I’d prefer base 10 time than base 12. Until then I’ll just keep with am pm
You mean like metric time?
I don’t want to believe that time goes on for that long.
I’d rather a 6 hour clock.
It only solves a small part of the issue at the cost of less convenience and consistency. Propose a “metric” time that solves more of this issue problem and I’m all for it
less convenience and consistency
What? … seriously, which convenience and consistency are you talking about.
24h only has one “inconsistency”, going from 23:59 to 0:00. How is that less consistent than 12am being after 11:59pm and 12pm being after 11:59am. Solves all parts of the issue except for one. Which is a lot better than the 12h system.
This has messed with me for the longest time. 24h just wraps around at 24, simple modulo 24 arithmetic.
12h? The hour and am / pm wrap around independently, and hence I am always confused whether 12pm is supposed to be midnight or noon. Zero based would have made more sense (with x pm being x hours after noon…)
Why are the 60 minutes in an hour but 24 hours in a day? What functional difference is there between tne 12 and 24 hour clock? Are you showing up to your friend’s dinner party at 6am because you weren’t sure what time they wanted to start dinner? Are you unsure if your picnic is supposed to be right after midday or the middle of the night? Maybe your friend wanted to meet up for coffee and a bagel when you normally go to bed instead of right before you head off for lunch
I asked why the am/pm system is apparently more convenient and consistent than the 24h system. I didn’t ask about 24h in a day and 60min in an hour.
What functional difference is there between tne 12 and 24 hour clock?
You need 2 numbers and 2 letters to accurately specify time in the 12h clock instead of just 2 numbers. Seems convenient to me.
You don’t need the am or pm 90% of the time because obviously a lunch date is happening sometime around noon, not midnight. A lunar eclipse or meteor shower isn’t visible while the sun is up, or a midnight snack isn’t happening in the middle of the day. Obviously if you are talking trains and flights, you need AM and PM. But people who are used to 12 hour time don’t want to figure out when 16:00 is, so they don’t.
Fun fact: Many countries use both systems actually.
For speaking, it’s quicker to say something like: “The party starts at 8” instead of “The party starts at 20 o’clock”.
For writing though, you would never use the 12 hour system.
i’m pretty sure for 90% of europe there’s been a generational shift from saying “four in the afternoon” to just saying “16”, after digital clocks started replacing analog ones.
If you know basic addition and you know how a 12 hour clock functions, then you know how a 24 hour clock functions. If you can’t figure it out, that doesn’t make it inconvenient, it just makes you incredibly stupid.
I get the joke, but the sundials of ancient civilisations precluded clocks.
“Precluded” means “prevented” or to “make impossible” ❤️
Oh hot damn, first time I used that word.
Maybe presaged?
Predated
Preceded maybe? Precluded sounds like it should mean something similar for sure tho
Yup, that’s why we still don’t have any clocks to this day.
It’s all the Babylonians fault
Those fuckers could count to 60 on their fingers. Witchcraft!
Using binary, we could count to 1023 with 10 fingers but only 511 with 9 fingers
Boys could count to 2047.
Sundials also didn’t work very well at midnight for some reason, what’s ya point?
That’s why for a long time, and even longer in the Royal Navy, the new day started at noon and not midnight.
You’re just not holding the flashlight properly.
If you hold the flashlight right they work 100% of the time.
Sundials also didn’t work very well at midnight for some reason, what’s ya point?
Noon is the center of the dial. Midnight is just the opposite of noon.
I cannot tell if this is sarcasm or not. This is peak Poe’s Law.
The numbers on the clock actually make a lot of sense.
12, 24 and 60 are highly composite numbers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_composite_number).
Imagine using numbers in a world where most people have no real understanding of fractions.
That is also the reason why you see the same or similar numbers as common screen refresh rates. 24, 48, 60, 120 and 240.
The 12 hour clockface design is that way because it is a similar design to that of a sundial, so people did not need to learn a new way to read the time. This also meant that for readibility reasons it was beneficial to only have 12 numbers.
24 hours cause Egyptians split their sun dials and star decans into 12 parts each (probably cause 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6) which the greeks later turned into equal length hours (before the length would change over the year)
60 minutes due to Babylonian base-60 math
12 hour format is just tradition at this point, but derived from the sun dials which only worked at day, so half the time, and the star decans which only worked at night, so the other half.
pretty much every country except the US uses the 24h format on digitial clocks now
also the dude in the meme was kinda right: the day will be divided into 12 segments. and the night will too. at least originally
It’s called a “highly composite number!” I read up on a lot of this stuff while learning about numerology and other esoteric spiritual traditions!
24 hour analogue clocks exist. I have a 24 hour watch which only revolves once per 24 hours. It’s a disadvantage though.
The reason why clocks and watches display 12 hours at a time is so that they have space to show finer resolution of time. If you try to cram 24 hours onto a clock, it’s not easy to tell if it’s 12:20 or 12:30 at a quick glance.
Most people are not too stupid to be aware of if they are in the first 12 hours or second 12 hours of a day, so they benefit from a watch with 12 hour timescale and finer resolution so that they can more easily see exactly what time it is.
And for all the dummies posting about 12h vs 24h clocks. In the sense of saying that it’s 1pm vs 13:00. That’s not what this meme is even describing. This is about the physical layout of a clock or watch face.
I can’t believe this is the first I’m hearing of 24-hour analogue clocks! That’s so cool. But yeah, I see your point about it now allowing for very much precision at a glance.
If 12 is better than 24 we should build 6 hour analog clocks already!
