Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 15:42:13 -0700
Reply-To: Jack Hamilton <JackHamilton@FIRSTHEALTH.COM>
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: Jack Hamilton <JackHamilton@FIRSTHEALTH.COM>
Subject: Fwd: Re: Noon Sobriety (was: Midnight Madness)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Something strange seems to be happening to my outgoing mail, so I'm
trying again:
>>> Jack Hamilton 03/20/2002 1:58 PM >>>
What he says is logical, I admit, but nevertheless astronomers use a
year 0, and convention says that 12am is midnight and 12pm is noon.
Given the choice of believing The Straight Dope about astronomy, or
believing NASA, I think I'll believe NASA:
<http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEcat/SEcatalog.html>
Ken Moody has already pointed out the dictionary (and common usage)
definition of 12am and 12pm.
>>> <mark.k.moran@census.gov> 03/20/2002 1:03 PM >>>
See the URL:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_130.html
Mark
"Jack Hamilton"
<JackHamilton@firsth To:
mark.k.moran@CENSUS.GOV,
ealth.com> SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
cc:
03/20/2002 02:52 PM Subject: Re: Noon
Sobriety (was: Midnight
Madness)
I think you're incorrect on both counts.
You're talking about usage, not logic, so there's no reason why 12am
and 12pm couldn't have meaning, and in fact, by definition (not by
logic), they do. 12am is midnight and 12pm is noon.
As for the year zero, astronomers use -2 , -1, 0, 1, 2, etc.
>>> "Mark Moran" <mark.k.moran@CENSUS.GOV> 03/20/2002 9:13 AM >>>
Correction on my part, excuse my lack of clarity:
There is no year 0 AD for EXACTLY the same reason as there is no time
"12:00:00 PM" (and no time "12:00:00 AM") although there is a
"12:00:00".
If you track the year 0 AD it would have 0 days in it.
Mark
----- Forwarded by Mark K Moran/PRED/HQ/BOC on 03/20/2002 12:11 PM
-----
Mark K Moran
To: Fernando Colina
<Fernando.Colina@UMB.EDU>
03/20/2002 cc: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
11:55 AM Subject: Noon Sobriety
(was: Midnight Madness)
(Document link: Mark K Moran)
-------Original Message with Comments Inserted------:
I'm confused about the speculation that there is no such thing as 12
PM
or
12 AM, because some people are defining a moment in time using some
kind of
Heisenbergian uncertainty principle:
--> Well,
o There is nothing "Heisenbergian" or "uncertainty" related
about
this.
o There is no claim that noon or midnight are somehow
"nonexistent"
o There is no claim that something is not being measured
--> (Someone did make a facetious remark about nonexistence, but it
wasn't
me.)
--> The letter "P" in PM and the letter "A" in AM stand for Post and
Ante,
which mean AFTER and BEFORE, as you yourself said. If we are
*measuring*
something, this is like something falling into an INTERVAL COVERING
POSITIVES on the right hand side of the numberline or falling into an
INTERVAL COVERING NEGATIVES on the left hand side of the numberline
and
not
at all like the *point* zero.
--> In fact, this is exactly the same practical, non-Heisenbergian,
measureable issue as referring to years AD and years BC. There is no
such
thing in any calendar in the world as the year "zero AD" because each
and
every one of the first 365 days following the last 365 days belonging
to
the BC era is part of the the year 1 AD. The first year of the AD era
starts on its very first day. It would be quite odd and
counterintuitive
to have a "Year Zero" which was neither AD nor BC... this is the
world-recognized standard.
--> Noon and midnight EXIST and are REAL *but* terms which describe
"12:00:00" do not refer to AM or PM, which is an entirely DIFFERENT
topic.
It is not the terms noon or midnight that are inadequate but the term
AM
and PM, just like the term integer cannot be stretched to include 2.5.
That's a far cry from saying 2.5 doesn't exist! You cannot say noon
is
PM
or AM, but you can say that noon EXISTS and that it occurs between any
AM
value of time and any PM value of time. In the practical world, each
and
every measurement of time falls within a specified interval, and only
in a
very theoretical world can you say it falls at an instantaneous point.
12:00:00 PM is as real a moment in time just as 5:00 PM or 3:34 AM or
whatever (12:00 PM is not an asymptote:
--> I don't know if you are referring to noon or midnight by saying
"12:00:00 PM" because the entire smallest unit of time before your
example
is AM if you are thinking of noon and is PM if you are thinking of
midnight. I cannot read your mind.
SAS wisely determines it as the number of seconds between time
zero--midnight--and itself). This is like arguing that there is no
zero
(someone said that if you subtract 1 second from 12:01 you really get
11:59
and not 12:00 because there is no such thing as 12:00 (sic).
--> The original statement is correct. Your exact same criticism
could
be
applied to the years in AD and the years in BC. When is the year 0
AD?
There is no year 0 AD for EXACTLY the same reason as there is no time
"12:00:00" ... But there does EXIST and entire year BEFORE the
Christ-event
and the first entire year measured from the Christ-event. What do you
get
when you subtract 1 year from the year 1 AD ... you get 1 BC, not zero
anything. And that's according to EVERY calendar in the world.
There is a point at which the sun is at its zenith (its highest point
in
the sky--at least from a flat-earth perspective).
--> Yes, of course, but it's not 12 with a string of zero's following
it!
If one plots the number line (-3,-2,-1,0,+1,+2,+3, etc.) it's evident
that
there is a position in the number line where zero falls (independent
of
how
many photographs someone suggested we choose to take just before or
just
after the event).
--> You are so right! And there is an interval on the left of 0 and
an
interval on the right of 0, but there is no "interval" 0. In real
life,
time (and years) requires INTERVALS during which SAS and other
programs
can
point to specific units. These intervals are either AM or PM. An
interval
which crosses zero is merely ambiguous, not somehow nonexistent.
If one plots y = x It's obvious that when x = 0, there is a point at
which
y is also zero
and they intersect in a real place on the number line.
..this is not to say that zero does not exist on the number line, all
it
means is that the result is undefined.
--> Again, regardless of anyone else, I myself never said or meant to
imply
that zero "does not exist". AM INTERVALS must always be on one side
of
12
with a string of zero's and PM INTERVALS must always be on the
opposite
side of 12 with a string of zero's. Sure you could have ambiguous,
overlapping intervals -- but that's all they would be -- they wouldn't
magically become AM or PM!
Saying that the instants 12:00 PM or 12:00 AM are undefined and
non-existent
--> I beg your pardon, I haven't heard anyone except one person (not
me)
who was being facetious claim that they are undefined and
non-existent.
You are missing the point entirely!
ought to earn the lawyers that argued themselves into such a
conclusion
a
per hour rate based on the same principle: one could argue just the
same
that every second of every minute of every hour they spent talking
themselves silly was just as undefined as 12:00 PM or 12:00 AM.
--> The above statement is nonsense. There is no A3 for Ante 3 pm or
P7
for Post 7 pm. AM and PM mean AM and PM no matter how much you want
to
make them out to be something different. It is YOU who are splitting
hairs
and claiming that AM and PM do not exist, which is nonsense!
