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Why does the new day begin at Midnight?
Bill Clinton
Posts: 9,389 Forum Member
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I've never really understood this, purely from a numerical standpoint it probably makes sense, and when you think that historically before the advent of electricity and modern technology most people would be well and truly gone to bed before it got that late into the night, but now modern lifestyles are such that it is at the very least just after most peoples bedtimes and huge swathes of us don't end our day until deep in the small hours. So is it really logical for us to say as a modern society that Midnight will mark the start of a new day?
Talk radio hosts talk about "this time in the morning" and "later" referring to what is really the next day, if you are up listening to that, the irony is, you are very much still in what they are now calling the previous day. Who gets up at Midnight or 1am?
The day boundary could be more like 6am, or perhaps 3am.
Talk radio hosts talk about "this time in the morning" and "later" referring to what is really the next day, if you are up listening to that, the irony is, you are very much still in what they are now calling the previous day. Who gets up at Midnight or 1am?
The day boundary could be more like 6am, or perhaps 3am.
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I agree with 6am being the starting point for a new day. It seems bonkers to start saying good morning at 1 minute past midnight when it is quite clearly pitch black outside. I guess it's just another one of those archaic conventions that's stuck around.
Hopefully zx50 will be along soon, he's usually good with deep thinking threads like this.
So that transitional moment when the sun starts to 'come up' again (notwithstanding we can't actually see it until it pops above the horizon at sunrise) is a sensible starting point for the new day (and ending point for the old day).
Strewth! I wouldn't fancy celebrating the New Year at 3am or 6am!
Presumably midday would be 3pm or 6pm which would really screw up my "elevenses"!
Midday was generally when the sun was at it's highest point, and all other times were built around that.
Yup ... there have been a number of different starts to the day. I should have used the present tense in my last sentence ...
"Midday is generally when the sun is at it's highest point, and all other times are built around that."
That's why the new day begins at midnight.
What is a day?
Interesting fact. If you are lost somewhere in the UK, during the day, and are wearing an analogue watch, position your wrist (with the watch) so that the hour hand points in the direction of the sun and then the bisecting angle between this direction and 12 o'clock points due South.
This only works if your watch is accurate. Also, for BST, 1 o'clock is the time of maximum height for the sun so take the bisector between the hour hand and 1 o'clock.