Clocks should use 24h format. AM/PM is completely useless.
this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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It sounds like a joke but I really had someone stop me on the street to ask for the time and when I said 2:30 they asked "AM or PM?" I guess a 24 hour clock would've prevented that.
No it's not, with a 12h format on an analog watch you can use the sun to find true north. It is also easier to read it when the hands have double the amount of degrees to indicate the number.
Edit -- digital watches should use 24h, I fully agree, maybe there was a misunderstanding because it's analog watches we're talking about here and these could stay 12h IMHO
How do you find north on a 12h face that wouldn't work with a 24h face? Because the method I know, requires correcting for the 12h circle.
Yeah, that's the method I know.
Divide the angle that is made in half
And that's how you correct for the 12h face.
Thought as much but never had any experience with 24h watches, so no comment on this from my side :)
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I have never seem a 24h wrist watch (I know they exist) aside from extremely seldom as wall clocks
I've looked for them, but they're very hard to find and expensive too. You can't just slap a 24h face on a 12h mechanism, so it's all custom and produced in low volumes. (I think it's technically possible to convert a 12h period into 24h by switching out a single gear, but that might ruin your minute hand too? I'm no clock maker.)
They don't have to be expensive, though such watches are less popular for everyday use. In fact I'm wearing a Vostok Kommendurski with a 12/24 hour dial. When I was a medic, I needed to record all my times in 24hr format on my run reports. I think I paid $35US delivered from Russia 15 or so years ago.
And no extra gear is needed to make an analog watch/clock indicate 24 hour time. Time doesn't change. You simple have one scale that reads from 12AM through 12PM and then at the next hour, (1PM) it simply gets renumbered to 13, 14, 15, 16 and so on until you reach 24 on the inside scale. Easy peasey.
But it is possible to build a watch/clock that the movement does move in 24 hour time and you would be correct it would a couple of extra gears to accomplish. But, it would also be a real pain to create a legible watch face with all those numbers on a reasonable sized watch. Far simpler and easier to print the two scales on the face and call it good.
You paid $35 for the watch, the delivery or both? Because I saw those Vostok watches with proper 24h faces, which is exactly what I'm looking for, but they're $140. I guess that's not super expensive for a watch, but I can get a much nicer 12h watch for that money.
And a double numbered clock face is the simple solution, probably more convenient to read, but also not really a conversation starter :)
Vostok Komandirskie
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At least our hours are the same length regardless of latitude now, so let's be grateful for that.
Don't listen to OP's bullshit.
They work for big clock. They're trying to convince you 12 hour clock is useless so they can sell you double the clock.
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I only recently learned the etymology of the word: "second"
Its name comes from being the "second" division of the hour, with the minute being the first.
I honestly hate this.
It's like bad world building for some throwaway fiction story.
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When I become dictator of the world, this will be the new time unit: https://metric-time.com/
The year will also have 13 months: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fixed_Calendar
The year will be 12025: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_calendar
Because these things just make more sense. You will thank me after a few generations, because habits are hard to change.
Redefining the definition of a second sounds very problematic.
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Days start at 0h, not 12h
It can't start at 12 hours if there are 24 segments.
And keep your letters out of it too.
The AM/PM bullshit:
AM: 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Then the same for PM. Who counts like that? Whats after 12? 1! What?
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Sundials.
Now if you want to get really pissed, the magnetic North Pole is actually the South Pole of the Earth’s magnetic field. We call it the North Pole because the north side of a magnet points to it.
Actually, we call it the North Pole because we already had a concept of North from the North Star. Then we invented magnets and decided that the part that points North is the North side of a magnet (despite North Pole being magnetic south).
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If you want to be mad about time then I'd like to introduce you to a little thing I like to call the Gregorian calendar.