To any one that may find this interesting (besides me), I just received an email from an employee at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in response to a question I sent to them last week about the exact time that the date would change from one day to the next.
I asked:
"Some friends and I were debating on the exact time the date would change from one day to the next. Is it midnight, or one second after midnight, or one minute after midnight, etc.? Thank you for any information you could provide."
He responded:
Midnight is neither a.m. nor p.m., so it's right in between days but, however, the shortest measurable time after Midnight is considered a.m. We can define the second to 14 decimal places, so not one second after midnight, but much less.
For all practical purposes, by the time anyone sees the time change at midnight and thinks about it, the fraction of a second has elapsed, so then it's the next day.
on August 14, 2006, 9:20 am
I asked:
"Some friends and I were debating on the exact time the date would change from one day to the next. Is it midnight, or one second after midnight, or one minute after midnight, etc.? Thank you for any information you could provide."
He responded:
Midnight is neither a.m. nor p.m., so it's right in between days but, however, the shortest measurable time after Midnight is considered a.m. We can define the second to 14 decimal places, so not one second after midnight, but much less.
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