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Timekeeping (Clocks, Horology, Methods, Standards)

Mr Mischief said:
@Comfortably Numb Can we say happy birthday yet or are you still in rehearsal? :D
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If you were born at one minute before midnight, then strictly, every year on that date, you only have one minute to celebrate your birthday.

Can't go past midnight, because that's a different day.

Converesely, should you have been born at one minute past midnight, then naturally, every year on same date, you have all day to celebrate.

See... the thing is here.. I was born at midnight, precisely, on 2 May, 1958, birth certificate recording, 'time of birth' as '12:00:00'.

So, I don't get any time for a birthday party at all?

Cue wisdom of the Internet, where we find a clear explanation:

"Depends on which side of the 12 the second hand is. Before the 12 midnight, the day we are still in, after 12 midnight what used to be tomorrow, until the second hand hit 12 and made it today".

:wtf:

Right then, so far as I'm concerned, it's still my birthday until midnight.

Arguments otherwise, not interested, don't bother...

Therefore, perfectly justifiable to have that celebratory dram of yon bottle of Islay single malt, which I simply didn't get around to yesterday.

That’s probably fate intervening, eh, seeing it's not my real Birthday until today.
 
<pedant alert>

Comfortably Numb said:
birth certificate recording, 'time of birth' as '12:00:00'.
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12:00:00 is twelve o'clock noon.
Your birth certificate would be 00:00:00 if it was midnight.

And just a thought/question - if you are born at the north or south pole what time of birth are you given?
I mean, it's permanantly all times at either surely?
I do believe that the commonly accepted principle for researchers etc is to adopt the time of whichever nation you're from, but that then becomes complicated if, say, a researcher from Norway and a researcher from Argentina 'get it on' and produce offspring while on the tundra.
Also, what about when someone drops a sprog on a flight somewhere? Do they use the time of the departure or the arrival country (should be arrival I guess). Or do they pick some arbitrary time closest to the time zone they're flying through at the time?
 
Trevp666 said:
Also, what about when someone drops a sprog on a flight somewhere? Do they use the time of the departure or the arrival country
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Neither. An aircraft in mid-air adheres to UTC for all time references, so I would expect that would apply to a birth (or a death) but I will check on that.
 
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Trevp666 said:
... And just a thought/question - if you are born at the north or south pole what time of birth are you given?
I mean, it's permanantly all times at either surely? ...
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For everyday practical purposes timekeeping at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station adheres to New Zealand's time. This is done because the air traffic for the station's supply chain comes in from New Zealand.

if a child were born there I suspect the birth's time / date would be translated from UTC to the recording jurisdiction's timekeeping context upon registration.

I don't know whether treaty protocols pertaining to international territory follow the same guidelines as treaty protocols for maritime and aerial events.
 
Comfortably Numb said:
It was 1958, Maryhill Hospital, Glasgow and would suggest my midwife looked at the clock and... 'date of birth.. that'll be 12 o' clock then', was duly recorded in her handwriting as, '12.00'.
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Just a note ... I don't know what rules applied in Scotland in 1958, but long ago here in the States it was common practice to enter a birth time of 12:00 (noon) if / when the exact time of birth was ambiguous or unknown. The noon-time attribution placed the birth in the middle of the calendar day / date, and that was "close enough for government work."
 
I knew I shouldn't have asked!

And furthermore......

What about children born on the following;
At midnight + 1 second, on the night of those years on which the 'scientists' determine we have to insert a 'leap second'? (do they do that on new years eve?)
On February 29th - when are they deemed as being 1 year old? On the 28th or the 1st?
Half an hour before the clocks get put back in the Autumn - technically they'd be born twice at the same time wouldn't they?
On an aeroplane, as they cross the international date line, during a leap second, taking off from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station and landing in a destination that has not signed and adhered to the 1961 international treaty on stateless persons?
(Okay, bit of a stretch that one I know)
 
Delightful Sunday afternoon/conversation and wondered if the following complicates matters?

23 May, 2018

American celebrates longest birthday ever – but was within 90 seconds of his plan going wrong

Birthdays only come once a year, so it only makes sense to have the special occasion last as long as possible.

Hawaii-based Paul Morgan had this same train of thought, when he decided to break the Guinness World Records title for having the Longest birthday.

Lasting a whopping 48 hours, the software developer doubled the length of his big day by hopping on several planes around the world to different time zones.

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.co...-but-was-within-90-seconds-of-his-plan-526749
 
Trevp666 said:
What about children born on the following;
At midnight + 1 second, on the night of those years on which the 'scientists' determine we have to insert a 'leap second'? (do they do that on new years eve?) ...
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This is something of a tricky issue. The addition of a leap second is an adjustment to the clocks tracking the passage of time, not an adjustment to the (calendar; daily) timeframe being tracked.

Leap seconds are traditionally appended to the end of the last day of either December or June (almost always December). A 24-hour time display would correctly present the leap second as 23:59:60, then move on to 00:00:00. The standards for leap second adjustments secondarily allow for the leap second to be appended to the end of the last day in March or September.

My guess is that (in the unlikely event; under a strict interpretation ... ) a doctor or midwife who glanced at a correctly displayed 23:59:60 would attribute the exact time of birth to the previous / ending day, and it would be recorded on a birth certificate as 23:59 / 11:59 p.m.

More generally ... I'm not aware of any hospital / birth record protocol that's ever cited time more precisely than in hours and minutes alone.
 
Trevp666 said:
... On February 29th - when are they deemed as being 1 year old? On the 28th or the 1st?
...
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For informal / personal purposes a person born on February 29th is typically free to celebrate his / her birthday on Feb. 28, March 1, or only every four years on Feb. 29.

For formal / legal purposes, the birth anniversary attribution and criteria for attaining one's next age are defined by law / regulations and can vary with jurisdiction. To give an example ...

In the USA for federal purposes the attainment-of-age issue is a non-issue for those born on February 29th. The governing rule (set by the Social Security Administration) is that you attain your next incremental age effective with the day preceding the anniversary of your birth (figuratively stated, the 365th day counted off starting with your birth anniversary). This means that for federal purposes a leap year baby attains the next incremental age on February 28th, regardless of when he / she celebrates the birthday.
 
EnolaGaia said:
Just a note ... I don't know what rules applied in Scotland in 1958...
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I haven't seen my birth certificate in aeons.

I remember the details were, typically, written with a fountain pen, in italics.

I do not remember where it is.

I know for certain, it's with other documents in an envelope. That envelope is one of many others in a box. The box itself, is one of many in a stack of them, in the small cupboard no-one ever opens. Said stack of boxes, is one of several and......

Hmmm... you know how they say, 'some things are better left alone'....

I shall probably take that advice... :)
 
Comfortably Numb said:
I haven't seen my birth certificate in aeons.

I remember the details were, typically, written with a fountain pen, in italics.

I do not remember where it is.

I know for certain, it's with other documents in an envelope. That envelope is one of many others in a box. The box itself, is one of many in a stack of them, in the small cupboard no-one ever opens. Said stack of boxes, is one of several and......

Hmmm... you know how they say, 'some things are better left alone'....

I shall probably take that advice... :)
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I mislaid mine the move before last, spent ages looking for it in all the places you've just described. I sent off for a copy but I still haven't given up hope of it turning up as it's just not the same. The copy makes me feel like a fake person and talking of which I worry there's someone out there pretending to be me. I just can't imagine how it could have got lost! *

Times of birth are important! One of my class mates shared my bithday ... she was born at half past midnight and I was born at quarter to one in the morning and boy did she use that 1/4 hour age difference to pull rank!

* Not sure I'm exactly sure where the copy is now! Oh heck something else to worry about! Damn it all I'm off to bed!

Sollywos x
 
My birth certificate was quite specific on my time of birth - 2:43 p.m., standard time (the jurisdiction hadn't adopted DST at that point).

As a personal gag I would sometimes set my alarm clock to go off at 1443 (equivalent; depending on location) on my birthday, and occasionally carry it with me during the day, to cue me at the exact time I'd completed another orbit 'round the sun.
 
Sollywos said:
Damn it all I'm off to bed!
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And what do you know but settled all snuggly with my book .. turned the page and one of the characters mentioned her exact time of birth! Well this is the Forteana forum lol

Sollywos x
 
EnolaGaia said:
Right ... Assuming the time of birth was logged in-flight it would be recorded as "Zulu" (UTC) time. The UTC time can then be readily translated into a time equivalent for / by any jurisdiction that needs to specify it (e.g., on a birth certificate).




No - not necessarily ... The time readings you cited only pertain in the context of a 24-hour clock protocol. This would apply for the UTC timestamp, but wouldn't necessarily be definitive for the local translation.

In places that adhere to a 12-hour protocol (typically adding "a.m." / "p.m." to differentiate the two halves of the day period) there would be no "00:00:00" and additional annotation would be required to specify which "12:00:00" was intended.

... And it gets even worse ...

There exist peculiar timekeeping protocols that do not allow midnight to be depicted as "00:00:00" under either or both the 12- and 24-hour timestamp protocols - instead requiring the exact moment of midnight to be subsumed within 23:59:XX or 00:01:XX.

There's another potential ambiguity associated with specifying the date. Under some legal / regulatory definitions a day / date starts at 00:00:00; for others it's at 00:00:01; and for still others it's not until 00:01:00. This means that - depending on the legal context of a given jurisdiction - a birth at exactly 00:00:00 may conceivably be treated as specifying a birth anniversary (i.e., birthday) date on the date instantaneously ending or the date instantaneously beginning.

These latter complications vary with the laws / regulations of particular jurisdictions, so there's no universal rule(s) by which to judge the result in all cases.

RE: Arrival country ...

For those nations who've signed and adhere to the 1961 international treaty on stateless persons the jurisdiction of birth is attributed to the first nation in which the airplane lands after the child is born. This rule doesn't necessarily apply in cases where the first nation of landing is not bound by the treaty.

Off hand, I don't recall what the earlier maritime rules for at-sea births were or how many times they may have changed.
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We had a whole thread about people born in the air or at sea! here:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...sit-ships-planes-legalities-conundrums.65441/
NOTE: This other thread addresses issues such as ascribed nationality / citizenship rather than time- or date-specific aspects of childbirth.
 
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EnolaGaia said:
...I would sometimes set my alarm clock to go off at 1443 (equivalent; depending on location) on my birthday...
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Before the days of mobile phones, you would naturally use a watch to tell the time.

Still popular, were traditional, wind-up models.

Back then, my good friend Colin was something of an eccentric - lovely, Vivian Stanshall type of guy.

I once asked him for a time-check and he replied, 'half past two'.

Couldn't possibly be right and I pointed this out. Colin revealed he no longer wound up his watch, which didn't actually work and always read, 'half past two'.

Why?

Colin explained he could now be sure, his watch told the correct time, twice a day.
 
Sollywos said:
... Times of birth are important! One of my class mates shared my bithday ... she was born at half past midnight and I was born at quarter to one in the morning and boy did she use that 1/4 hour age difference to pull rank! ...
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In astrology the exact time of birth can make a difference when constructing a natal chart / birth chart.

Back in the 1970s I created birth charts for a number of folks (primarily because I was the only one crazy enough to attend to the details and calculations required). There were multiple instances in which the precise time of birth made a difference in determining which house / sign was the proper attribution / association for some component of the overall chart.

Almost none of the friends and other 'clients' knew their precise time of birth, so there was repeated griping when they had to delay receiving their birth chart until they could pin down that one critical detail.
 
EnolaGaia said:
In required)There were multiple instances in which the precise time of birth made a difference in determining which house / sign was the proper attribution / association...
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Of course! That would elemental and I would doubtless, never have thought about this aspect.

A momentary aside, you have reminded myself of Billy Connolly's early career anecdote, recalling his first experience of America.

This is going back quite a few years and someone has kindly uploaded the very thing (screenshot from Michael Parkinson's chat show, I believe).

Billy explained he was often asked, 'What's your starsign'?.... and would respond...

Screenshot_20200504_213516_resize_16.jpg
 
The Norwegian 'minister of time' has apologized for this upcoming weekends daylight saving time adjustment, which will add an hour (back) to an already vexing year.
Norwegian official apologizes for making 2020 an hour longer

The Norwegian official responsible for Daylight Saving Time in the country apologized for adding an additional hour to what "has already been a very demanding year."

Iselin Nybo, whose duties as minister of Trade and Industry include implementing Daylight Saving Time, said the clocks will be set back an hour Sunday morning in accordance with the traditional time change. ...

"As minister of time, I strongly regret that 2020 will be another hour longer. This has already been a very demanding year for many," Nybo told the Norwegian News Agency.

She encouraged Norwegians to look on the "brighter" side to the time change.

"When we set the clock back, the night gets an hour longer. This means that when we get up on Sunday, the sun has managed to get a little further up above the horizon than at the same time the day before, and we get a brighter morning than we would otherwise have," she said. ...
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SOURCE: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2020/1...for-making-2020-an-hour-longer/3161603310054/
 
This is a rather-interesting clock design concept, which I knew nothing about:

The Myriad Year Clock
"The Myriad year clock (万年自鳴鐘 Mannen Jimeishou, lit. Ten-Thousand Year Self-ringing Bell), was a universal clock designed by the Japanese inventor Hisashige Tanaka in 1851. It belongs to the category of Japanese clocks called Wadokei. This clock is designated as an Important Cultural Asset by the Japanese government.

The clock is driven by a spring. Once it is fully wound, it can work for one year without another winding. It can show the time in 7 ways (such as usual time, the day of the week, month, moon phase, Japanese time, Solar term). It also rings chimes every hour. It consists of more than 1,000 parts to realize these complex functions, and it is said that Tanaka made all the parts by himself with simple tools such as files and saws. It took more than three years for him to finish the assembly".
Myriad-Year_Clock%2C_made_by_Hisashige_Tanaka%2C_1851%2C_with_western_and_Japanese_dials%2C_weekly%2C_monthly%2C_and_zodiac_setting%2C_plus_sun_and_moon_-_National_Museum_of_Nature_and_Science%2C_Tokyo_-_DSC07407.JPG
 
Sadness and voter suppression: My mom died a short while before TX required inconvenient docs to qualify to vote. Before that happened I had no idea where my birth certificate was, but it happened to be in a big box of documents and things that she'd kept, so I was able to present it to get the newly required state I.D.
I have voted 1976-2016, happy days when you showed only your voter registration card.
 
Oh ! !

It is that time of the year, and I am not happy.

In my location this Sunday we spring forward an hour as daylight savings kicks in.

Why can they not leave the time one way or the other ?

It has been shown that changing your biological clock cause depression, obesity, heart attacks, stress,

disorientation, and memory loss, sleep disturbances, learnings, and loss of REM sleep.

Several states have considered one time, but then realized it will not work because the federal government will not change their schedules.
 
I haven’t read the whole thread, but in my skim-read only Rynner seems to have mentioned Railway Time here in the UK, and then only briefly.

In short, before 1840, time was measured locally by using either a sundial or a sextant. This meant that a particular time, e.g. noon, could vary considerably across the UK:

“In Britain, local time differed by up to 20 minutes from that of London. For example, Oxford Time was 5 minutes behind Greenwich Time, Leeds Time 6 minutes behind, Carnforth 11 minutes behind, and Barrow almost 13 minutes behind.”

This could be a nightmare for early train travellers on long multi-change journeys, as they’d have to either (a) alter their watches between towns (and know in advance by how much, and where), or (b) perform some serious mental arithmetic.

To standardise matters, the Great Western Railway introduced Railway Time in November 1840.

“Despite...early reluctance, railway time rapidly became adopted as the default time across the whole of Great Britain, although it took until 1880 for the government to legislate on the establishment of a single Standard Time and a single time zone for the country.”

The difference between local time and Railway Time meant that many public clocks had two minute hands, one for “local” and one for “London” time, like the Corn Exchange clock in Bristol:

bristol-time.jpg


maximus otter
 
Maximus Otter,

That is interesting.

I guess England runs on train service.

In the U.S., the states Hawaii and Arizona do not use DST because Arizona claims extreme heat, and Hawaii claims their length of days do not change near the equator.
 
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