What day is midnight?

[Felicia]

I have a contract with a realtor and it expires "at midnight on October 9, 2004". Does that mean in the morning of Oct. 9 or the night of Oct. 9?

I thought the contract expires at 12:00am October 9 (you know morning 'midnight') but the agent told me it means late night 'midnight' on October 9.

Anyone?

 

[vald1977]

I would assume it means late night on October 9th. In other words, before it is technically October 10th.

 

[stinkerbelle]

12:00am on October 9th is tonight.

October 9th ends at 11:59:59pm
October 10th starts at 12:00:00am.

the wording on the contract is odd.

like saying your annual pass expires "on october 9th at midnight"
that means your annual pass would be good on October 9th, but not the 10th.


I'm GUESSING "at midnight on October 9, 2004". is tomorrow night (saturday) at midnight. (just before it kicks over to sunday)

wow i'm confused

 

[cheyita]

While I believe technically you are right, I don't believe that is what they intended. After all, we celebrate New Year at the stroke of midnight. It is considered 12:00 a.m. Hmmm...

 

[piglet too]

I would say that if a contract ends "at midnight on Oct 9 2004" that you are contracted with them until Oct 10th.

 

[richiebaseball]

Originally posted by vald1977
I would assume it means late night on October 9th. In other words, before it is technically October 10th.

I would agree with this.

A small technical point. Midnight is neither am nor pm. It is just midnight. Just like noon is neither. It's 12:00 midnight or 12:00 noon.

Midnight belongs neither to the day before nor the day after. It's the dividing line between days kinda like the present is the dividing line between the future and the past.

Richard


Edited for spelling

 

[browneyes]

My definition of midnight is the first second of the day. Midnight on October 9th, imo, is 12:00 am October 9th. So that would mean at 11:59:59 on October 8th, the contract would still be in issue, but a second later, the contract would be void.

The New Year starts at midnight on January 1 instead of midnight on December 31.

From Merriam-Webster's online:

Main Entry: mid·night
Pronunciation: 'mid-"nIt
Function: noun
1 : the middle of the night; specifically : 12 o'clock at night
2 : deep or extended darkness or gloom
- midnight adjective
- mid·night·ly adverb or adjective

 

[froglady]

Originally posted by browneyes
My definition of midnight is the first second of the day. Midnight on October 9th, imo, is 12:00 am October 9th. So that would mean at 11:59:59 on October 8th, the contract would still be in issue, but a second later, the contract would be void.

The New Year starts at midnight on January 1 instead of midnight on December 31.

From Merriam-Webster's online:

Main Entry: mid·night
Pronunciation: 'mid-"nIt
Function: noun
1 : the middle of the night; specifically : 12 o'clock at night
2 : deep or extended darkness or gloom
- midnight adjective
- mid·night·ly adverb or adjective

But according to your definition, (unless you live in the land of the midnight sun) the contract would expire after the full 24 hours of Oct 9th have passed. The "night" began at darkness on the 9th, so that midnight is the middle of THAT night.

As a former night nurse, this was ALWAYS our understanding. We started our shift on one day, and ended it on the next, but were always scheduled according to the day we started.

This is also why a lot of hospitals now use military time; midnight is 24:00 of the day just COMPLETED.

 

[Felicia]

Well, heck, I'm still stumped! I suppose they do mean at night of Oct 9, but I would think 12:00 a.m. is the start of the day.

 

[SandraM]

My last car insurance expired at midnight on November 25. The certificate I got for the current year's insurance was dated from November 26 and will expire at midnight on November 25. So I take it from those dates that the midnight referred to is after the day is over.

 

[WDWHound]

This is a huge problem for programmers who write programs dealing with schedules that cross mignight. You see, midnight is techically the last second of one day (12AM or 24:00) AND the first second of the Next Day (12AM and 00:00). The standard when writing code for this is to consider midight as the first second of a new day, but there are people look at it the other way.

 

[parrothead365]

"It's a thin line between Saturday nite and Sunday morning." Jimmy Buffet.

 

[ahutton]

That is why insurance policies expire at 12:01 a.m. - to avoid the confusion!

 

[browneyes]

Originally posted by froglady
But according to your definition, (unless you live in the land of the midnight sun) the contract would expire after the full 24 hours of Oct 9th have passed. The "night" began at darkness on the 9th, so that midnight is the middle of THAT night.

You must've missed the first part of Webster's defintion: specifically : 12 o'clock at night.

The land of the midnight sun would be Alaska, right?

 

[laurie31]

Where I work we also use military time. 2400 is the last minute of the "old" day and 0001 is the first minute of the new day. So for us, 12 midnight (12:00:00 ) is the end of the old day, and at 12:00:01 it's tomorrow or, rather...today...LOL

I always assume midnight to be the very end of the day.

(And if you think this is confusing, try working nights when the time changes. You either have 2am twice, or you go straight from 1am to 3am. So...when do you give the 2am medications???)

Laurie

 

[froglady]

Originally posted by browneyes
You must've missed the first part of Webster's defintion: specifically : 12 o'clock at night.

The land of the midnight sun would be Alaska, right?

Nope...I'm using the definition you provided..."the middle of the night, specifically 12:00 o'clock at night."

MIDDLE of the night...the night began at sunset of one day, and ended at sunrise of the next. Technically, midnight is not ALWAYS the exact middle of the night. If sunset was at 8, and sunrise is at 6AM, 1AM is really the middle of the night.

"Midnight " on Oct 9th would fall between sunset of Oct 9th and sunrise of Oct 10th.

Yes, Alaska, and any other area in the Arctic circle during the summertime, such as Scandanavian countries.