Intro
Welcome to Minimal 1, a podcast about minimalism and simplicity. My name is Simon, and today, we’ll dive deeper into the 24-hour time format. Let’s go!
Main
Previously, we touched on the benefits of using the 24-hour time format, over the old 12-hour format. As I’m recording this, the time is 21:04, rather than 9:04 PM, or 9:04 in the evening, or just 9:04 if you happen to have more context allowing me to get away with not specifying. Let’s just keep it simple and say 21:04.
So let’s discuss some background first. Do you even know what AM and PM means? Maybe you do, but I’ll assume you don’t. I think 99% of people don’t. I didn’t even know until I looked it up several years ago, and I’m a nerd about this stuff. AM and PM came from Latin, do you even know what that is? They stand for ante meridiem and post meridiem, translating to before midday and after midday. The original reason for splitting the day into 12-hour halves was because of the day and night cycle being roughly equal. One half to track the sun, and one half to track the moon. For example, The Romans would divide their day time into 12 hours regardless of the time of year, meaning the actual length of each hour would vary depending on the time of year. How very accurate… as I judge them 2000 years into the future.
Around the year 1300, scientists, or more accurately, astronomers, were the first to use 24-hour mechanical clocks. Think of a 12-hour clock face, but with 24 hours crammed in there. Meanwhile, for the general public, it become common to use a 12-hour clock as we know it today. Though, this was really only true for the British empire, as elsewhere in Europe they still hung onto the 24-hour clock. Though, gradually, the 12-hour clock did become the standard in Europe.
If you’ve ever wondered where “o’clock” came from, it’s because there used to be multiple ways to tell the time, such as the sun dial. O’clock is short for “of the clock”, to let people know you’re referring to the clock. It’s rather redundant today, since we’re obviously all referring to the same clock.
One of the strange quirks with the 12-hour clock, is that the day starts with the number 12, but then drops down to 1 after an hour. It proceeds to be weird when 11:59 AM becomes 12:00 PM. Why did we just switch from AM to PM when we’re still counting up? And then it again jumps from 12:59 PM to 1:00 PM, another random jump.
Clock towers were a big reason why the 12-hour halves became popular, as it was too complex to chime more than 12 times, and it was likely easier to read 12 digits on the clock face from far away. But over time, more and more countries started moving back towards the 24-hour time format, led by industries such as the railroad, where incorrectly posting AM or PM lead to incorrect schedules and confused passengers who might miss their train. Most countries in the world have successfully changed their national standard to using the 24-hour time format, and the invention of the digital clock has greatly accelerated this. With a digital clock, it makes the decision to use the 24-hour format much easier, as it requires less space since AM/PM can be entirely omitted.
Computers strictly use the 24-hour time internally, but may display it in the 12-hour format to you if that’s how you prefer it. But when logging time entries in a database, for example, the time is always stored in the 24-hour format.
So, which system do you use, 12 or 24? Well, whatever your answer is, it likely is heavily influenced by if your region was part of the British Empire, such as in the US, which is the only place in the world where people call the 24-hour time format, “Military Time”. And to demonstrate how stubborn habit can be, there are many countries that use the 24-hour time format in written or digital form, but tend to use the 12-hour time when speaking. Personally, I don’t get this as it seems very confusing. But maybe this stems from people feeling that the 12-hour time sounds more natural. But isn’t that just arbitrary? I mean sure, if you’re in America and you’ve heard the military say sixteen hundred hours instead of 16:00 O’Clock, that does sound pretty serious, maybe too serious for a casual conversation. But then just don’t say it like that. Why would it sound normal to say twelve o’clock, but not thirteen o’clock?? To help those who think it sounds strange, let’s just run through the times, shall we?
The beginning of the day, midnight, or 12:00 AM, is 00:00 O’Clock, or simply 00:00, written with two leading zeros as the 24-hour time format always shows 2 digits for the hour. The reason why the 24-hour clock starts with 00:00 is because no minutes have elapsed yet in the day. It is literally 0 hours and 0 minutes into the new day. Makes sense.
And now let’s just count up in 30-minute increments so that you get used to the way it sounds.
So:
00:00
00:30
01:00
01:30
02:00
02:30 - when perhaps you wake up to use the bathroom
03:00
03:30
04:00
04:30
05:00
05:30
06:00 - when I wake up
06:30
07:00
07:30
08:00
08:30
09:00 - when most people start work
09:30
10:00
10:30
11:00
11:30
12:00
12:30
13:00 - around the time when I usually have lunch
13:30
14:00
14:30
15:00
15:30
16:00
16:30
17:00 - when people usually go home
17:30
18:00
18:30 - time to eat
19:00
19:30
20:00
20:30
21:00
21:30
22:00 - bed time
22:30
23:00
23:30
And that’s it. Does it sound strange to use 18:30, instead of 6:30 PM? If it does, that’s likely on you as you’re just used to whatever you’ve used in your life. But that’s all quite arbitrary, isn’t it?
A major benefit of the 24-hour time format is that it isn’t ambiguous. How many times have you messed up AM or PM? How many times have you needed someone to clarify whether they meant morning or evening? And how many times have you incorrectly set the alarm clock and were late to an important event? This is exactly why scientists, military personnel, doctors, you name it, can’t afford to use the 12-hour format. And even for people like you and me, it’s actually rather confusing. And if you’re using the 12-hour format, the only reason is likely because you’re just used to it, not because it makes sense.
Some don’t want to switch because they find it confusing to have to convert 24-hour time into 12-hour time as they still use 12-hour time in their head. This may be strange at first, but eventually you’ll find yourself having to convert the 12-hour time into 24-hour time as you’ve switched to using the 24-hour time in your head. None the less, the conversion will become second nature once you do it enough times. But until then, a trick is to add 2 in the afternoon times. Such as 5:00 PM +2 is 7, which makes 17:00. Then you can just remember that 8:00 PM is 20:00, and then you’re just a few hours from the end of the day so you should be able to remember the rest. You can also just add 12 hours to all PM times. So 10+12 is 22. And sure enough, 10:00 PM is 22:00.
As a minimalist, I definitely prefer the 24-hour time format, as it looks much cleaner and is much less complicated. I’ve been noticing the 24-hour time format slowly becoming more popular in the US, which is very exciting. And more and more people are switching their phones to 24-hour format, and more and more store receipts are using 24-hour format as well.
Challenge of the day
I challenge you to adopt the 24-hour time format, and try using it in speech.
Outro
Thank you for listening. Please share your thoughts and any topics you’d like me to cover. Minimal 1 is on Twitter and Instagram at @minimal1media
See the show notes for more details.