Is midnight the start of a day or end of a day?


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Ok, quick question. Does midnight signify the beginning of the day or the end of the day?

So if I were to say either of these:

Military time: Monday @ 00:00 Hours or 24:00 Hours

Regular time: Monday @ 12:00 A.M.

Would that be the when:

Sunday becomes Monday

-or-

Monday becomes Tuesday

Hmm....

End of day - 11:59:59 PM

Beginning of day - 12:00 AM

There are milliseconds ;)

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no you can break it down to 11 hrs 59 mins 59.99 sec which could be broken down to 11 hrs 59 mins 59.999 sec which could be broken down to 11 hrs 59 mins 59.9999 sec, etc, etc, etc.

picture it as a number line

---------------------------------------|------------------------------------------

MONDAY......................................TUESDAY.......................................

the | signifies midnight. a line has no width. it is a one demensional object. right up until midnight its monday. right after midnight its tuesday. at THE EXACT MOMENT of midnight, its neither monday nor tuesday because that moment does not exist as humans can comprehend. that EXACT MOMENT has no length. its just a moment.

i guess im overanalyzing this.

The fact of the matter is that saying "Monday at midnight" is an ambiguous statement, and if you wanted to specify a date and time at midnight, you?d have to be more specific, ie, Monday morning at midnight (or Monday morning at 12:00), or Monday night at midnight (or Monday night at 12:00). But with military time, I think it?s incorrect to write 24:00. Either it?s 11:59:59? or it?s 00:00 (zero hours).

"Midnight" is the first instant of a day. Monday @ midnight would technically be the minute before 12:01 AM :yes: Which is still considered Monday.

Similarly, 12:00 PM is noon, or "midday". Even though 12 comes after 11, that's technically wrong. 12 comes before 1.

It can't be both!  What if you were going to greet someone?  Would you say either "Good morning" or "Good evening"?

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Actually I tihnk it can... with the help of a mathematical illustration

Take monday as day 9 and tuesday as day 10. where each new number is a new midnight. Ok, still with me?

[11:55] As we get closer [11:59] and closer [11:59.9] to tuesday [11:59.999999] the number '9' get's closer and closer to '10'.

So as in the above sentance you might have something like this: 9.7, 9.9, 9.99999 and then we get to 9.9 recurring, that is an infinite amount of 9s on the end. And then we can do the maths (just take '.999...' as the recurring decimal here)

x = 9.999...

10x = 99.999...

9x = 10x - x

9x = 99.999... - 9.999...

9x = 90

[divide both sides by 9]

9x/9 = 90/9

x = 10

Hence: 9.999... = 10

9.999... is the VERY end of monday

10 is the VERY beginning of tuesday

The two are the same point in time :p

So now you can see why I said both. :p

Beat that. :ninja:

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