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24-hour clock


Alpo

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In countries where they do not have an AM and a PM, but instead have a 24-hour clock, do they actually have a clock that reads from 1 to 24, or do they have a standard 1 to 12 clock and, like the military, would decide based on the light outside whether it was 3:00 or 15:00?

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I've never heard of that. What countries have a 24 clock??

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Almost all our analog clocks and watches also read from 1 to 12. I once had a watch that had a additional small dial with an 24 hour hand and you can buy some "designer" watches and clocks with a 24 hr dial, but very uncommon. As far as I know, clocks in submarines went from 1 to 24. Of course, our digital clocks go from 0 to 24. Interestingly, some displays go 23:59, 24:00, 00:01 and some go 23:59, 00:00, 00:01.

 

Official time specifications are always expressed in 24hr manner, while in casual language both is used. If it could be unclear, you add a "morgens", "mittags", "nachmittags", "abends", "nachts" (in the morning, at noon, afternoon, evening, night), but not AM or PM.

 

Btw, Christopher Nolan's Insomnia comes to mind. There's a scene where one detectiv (Al Pacino) wants to visit someone and the other says something like "but it's 3 o'clock!" "So what?" "3 o'clock AM." The movie plays in Alaska during perpetual daylight time...

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This nice map from Date and time representation by country - Wikipedia show the usage of 24 hour (red), am/pm (blue), and mixed (green). Many industries and most technical devices all around the globe do use 24-hour, and may only present the time in am/pm where needed.main-qimg-7a70a48639a450a46cd8caae5662f872

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I have noticed many times in my reading of military history (written from a British perspective), the WW One usage of clock times was given with these phonetic words:

"ack emma" for am

"pip emma" for pm

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10 hours ago, Alpo said:

In countries where they do not have an AM and a PM, but instead have a 24-hour clock, do they actually have a clock that reads from 1 to 24, or do they have a standard 1 to 12 clock and, like the military, would decide based on the light outside whether it was 3:00 or 15:00?

Don't know about other countries but in the military every clock I saw was in 24 hour format.  After my 16 tears in the military I spent 37 years in the FAA and ALL our clocks were in 24 hour format BUT also set up for GMT.

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1 hour ago, Dawg Hair, SASS #29557 said:

Don't know about other countries but in the military every clock I saw was in 24 hour format.  After my 16 tears in the military I spent 37 years in the FAA and ALL our clocks were in 24 hour format BUT also set up for GMT.

What really gets confusing is trying to covert from Zulu...GMT, or Coordinated Universal Time...to local U.S. time where Daylight Savings is in use...or not! The only way I can do it is to remember 56 years ago, when I was on a missile site in Montana, preparing to power down the bird for some maintenance.  We were not allowed to shut it down before 1700 MST, which would be 2400 Z, so that the bird would be counted as on alert for that day! That was 7 hours difference.  But, if you do the difference when it is Mountain Daylight, that means only 6 hours difference...provided Zulu doesn't go on Daylight time.

 

Now, if I am in the Mountain time zone, and we go on Daylight time, but I want to talk to someone in Arizona, they are an hour behind, along with California. HOWEVER...during the winter, when Mountain time gets to be an hour earlier, Arizona is on the same time as Mountain!  What will happen if Colorado decides to stay on Daylight time year-round (as may get on the ballet sometime)?   

 

Another fun situation was when I was in California and needed to talk with somebody at Cape Carniverous, and I got into work at 7:30 AM Pacific time, it was 10:30 AM in Florida.  If I didn't call before 8:30, everyone at the Cape went to lunch (11:30). Because they went home by 4:30 PM, if I didn't call by 1:30 PM, I missed them! :wacko:

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1 hour ago, Trailrider #896 said:

What really gets confusing is trying to covert from Zulu...GMT, or Coordinated Universal Time...to local U.S. time where Daylight Savings is in use...or not! The only way I can do it is to remember 56 years ago, when I was on a missile site in Montana, preparing to power down the bird for some maintenance.  We were not allowed to shut it down before 1700 MST, which would be 2400 Z, so that the bird would be counted as on alert for that day! That was 7 hours difference.  But, if you do the difference when it is Mountain Daylight, that means only 6 hours difference...provided Zulu doesn't go on Daylight time.

 

Now, if I am in the Mountain time zone, and we go on Daylight time, but I want to talk to someone in Arizona, they are an hour behind, along with California. HOWEVER...during the winter, when Mountain time gets to be an hour earlier, Arizona is on the same time as Mountain!  What will happen if Colorado decides to stay on Daylight time year-round (as may get on the ballet sometime)?   

 

Another fun situation was when I was in California and needed to talk with somebody at Cape Carniverous, and I got into work at 7:30 AM Pacific time, it was 10:30 AM in Florida.  If I didn't call before 8:30, everyone at the Cape went to lunch (11:30). Because they went home by 4:30 PM, if I didn't call by 1:30 PM, I missed them! :wacko:

In Florida it's a little easier.  Right now we are at +5 then in Fall we would be at +4.  It was a lot easier if we just got used to Zulu time and used it all the time.  I wore a GMT watch all the time so that made it even easier.  It was definitively necessary whenever we coordinated any event with another time zone, like with the FAA Depot, Tech Support or Academy at Oklahoma City.

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