Could someone please translate some text from Dance of a Lifetime by Don Lockwood.
I am well used to as an example "halv ti" (literally half ten) means half past nine so I am aware other people have non English ideas..
Don uses two phrases in American "half of" and "a quarter of" both referring to an hour. Is the "of" before or after???
I would use either "half past" or "a quarter to" or "a quarter past"
Thanks in advance
"a quarter of"
A "quarter of" is the same as "a quarter to." 15 minutes before the hour.
I never heard of "half of" as a time.
A "quarter of" is the same as "a quarter to." 15 minutes before the hour.
I never heard of "half of" as a time.
I Concur.
I've only ever heard the half hour referred to as half past.
Probably depends what language was at the base.
In Latvian an expression literally translating to "half nine" in reference to clock time would mean 8:30.
We never use "quarters" (result in awkward wording), but spell out (approximate) number of minutes instead, and there's both "without fifteen ten" = 9:45 and "fifteen over ten" = 10:15 as possibilities.
ok, I found "quarter of" (twice in Chapter 125) but had no luck with "half of" in the sense you are talking about. Where is it?
I just did a text search on the story. The phrase "half of" appears 18 times in DoaL, but none of them are in the context of a time.
But yes, "quarter of ten" means "9:45", same as "quarter to..." or "quarter 'til...". 10:15 would be "quarter past..." or "quarter after ten".
"Half past ten" is normal, but I've never heard "half to..." or "half of...". Or "half after..." for that matter.
English at least used to have the "half ten" (meaning 9.5 or 9:30) construct. It may still be current usage in some English dialects; I'm not sure.
English at least used to have the "half ten"
That's something I would say (British English).
AJ
English at least used to have the "half ten" (meaning 9.5 or 9:30) construct. It may still be current usage in some English dialects; I'm not sure.
That's common in Dutch, "half tien" (9:30). We also have both constructs for a quarter before or after the whole hour: "kwart voor tien" (9:45) and "kwart over tien" (10:15).
We also use "tien voor half tien", (ten before half 10, 9:20) and "tien over half 10" (9:40).
Yes, we still say half ten meaning half an hour after ten. That is common colloquial rather than formal. English, and especially the north east has a huge number of words which stem from Viking (Norwegian and Danish). That said, my original example of halv ti is current nord norsk and means half before ten! Carioca we say dez e meio (ten and half) or ten thirty. Translated French would be "ten hours and half".
Honestly, I have had so much trouble with language it's been fun - even upset every female in the city I was working laughing in at one time!!!! Thanks everyone.
Yes, we still say half ten meaning half an hour after ten.
Confusing, in Dutch half ten ('half tien') is 9:30 :)
I just did a text search on the story. The phrase "half of" appears 18 times in DoaL, but none of them are in the context of a time.
Yes, that's what I had done as well. There was a potential error with my search in that the two words could possibly have been spread over two lines of html and my search would not have found that - which is why I asked where it was.
English at least used to have the "half ten" (meaning 9.5 or 9:30) construct.
The only English usage I know for "half ten" (equivalent to "half past ten") is meaning 10:30, not 9:30. I also speak German and there "halb zehn" is 9:30. As an aside, a friend of mine is also bilingual and when he uses that construct, I always have to stop and think "which language are we speaking?".
I also speak German and there "halb zehn" is 9:30.
AFAIK, that's used throughout Germany, while the quarters differ from north to south:
In northern German it's "viertel vor" (quarter to) and "viertel nach" (quarter past), but in the southern parts it's "neun" (9:00), "viertel zehn" (9:15), "halb zehn" (9:30), "dreiviertel zehn" (9:45), "zehn" (10:00). During my 10 years in northern Germany my usage of "viertel zehn" evoked usually the question "vor oder nach?" and I had to tell them: 'neither, it means quarter past nine'.
HM.
ok, I found "quarter of" (twice in Chapter 125) but had no luck with "half of" in the sense you are talking about. Where is it?
We'd need to see an example to be sure, but "Nine and a half" is typically military time for 9:30, and "Ten and quarter" would be 10:15. Strangely, this is complicated because I've known many military men to use the expression "Ten and a quarter" with their wives to refer to 10:15p.m. rather than the more fitting "twenty-two hundred and a half".
You might want to revisit that last part, 10:15pm Β¬= "twenty-two hundred and a half". Those pesky 15 minutes.
It used to be that the British army had no midnight. Everything was either 2359 or 0001. At least you knew what day was involved. I don't know if that is still the case
By convention we can 12:00/24:00 or 0:00 for midnight, but that time doesn't actually exist. Midnight is the transition between two days. It avoids confusion as to the day referenced to say 23:59 or 12:01/00:01
but that time doesn't actually exist
I disagree. Midnight may not last very long but there is a time after 11:59pm and before 12:01 am. It can be either 12pm or 12am. Am is ante meridiem. Pm is post meridiem.
"The 12-hour clock divides the 24 hour day into two periods: am - stands for the Latin ante meridiem, translating to "before midday", before the sun has crossed the meridian line. pm - stands for post meridiem or "after midday", after the sun has crossed the meridian line."
Noon is 12 m for meridiem. Noon is neither am or pm.
Noon is neither am or pm.
That's interesting. People usually write noon as 12:00 p.m. and midnight as 12:00 a.m.
People usually write noon as 12:00 p.m. and midnight as 12:00 a.m.
All the digital 12 hour clock systems I've seen treat it that way. There is no option for anything not a.m. or p.m.
Blame the programmers of the very first computing systems. Any step that could be eliminated, was. Changing noon to pm, and midnight to am removed two steps, and adjusted the am/pm and pm/am changes to coincide with the 1159/1200 changes.
Electric and digital clock makers followed along ...
No, the irony was that was directly counter to time convention of that era/date. I.e. the 1953 US Gov't Publishing Office document on standards stated midnight = 12:00 p.m. and noon = 12:00 m.
I.e. the 1953 US Gov't Publishing Office document on standards stated midnight = 12:00 p.m. and noon = 12:00 m.
No irony at all.
That sort of standard is not binding on anyone other than federal government agencies.
ETA: My opinion is that midnight = 12:00 p.m. and noon = 12:00 m. makes even less sense than midnight = 12:00 a.m. and noon = 12:00 p.m.
Why? Because it's also wrong and inconsistent to boot. Noon may be the meridian, but midnight is not really either anti or post meridian as it is equidistant between two meridians.
0001 1 minute after midnight
0600 AM
1200 noon
1800 PM
2400 midnight
AM = Ante meridiem: Before noon. PM = Post meridiem.
Meridiem = mid day.
Makes more sense to me.
0001 1 minute after midnight
0600 AM
1200 noon
1800 PM
2400 midnight
AM = Ante meridiem: Before noon. PM = Post meridiem.
Meridiem = mid day.
Makes more sense to me.
The 24-hour clock doesn't need any additions like am, noon, or pm. The numbers are sufficient to mark the exact time.
The 24-hour clock doesn't need any additions like am, noon, or pm. The numbers are sufficient to mark the exact time.
Agreed, just stated them for clarity.
0001 1 minute after midnight
0600 AM
1200 noon
1800 PM
2400 midnight
AM = Ante meridiem: Before noon. PM = Post meridiem.
Meridiem = mid day.
Makes more sense to me.
Agreed. But that's not the standard I was referring to as making less sense than how 12 hour digital clocks work.
Here's the worst part about the noon = 12m, midnight = 12pm standard:
Midnight = 12:00pm
One minute after midnight = 12:01am.
Noon = 12:00m
One minute after noon = 12:01pm
This is why it makes more sense to make midnight 12:00am and noon 12:00pm, you get consistent treatment of the entire hour from 12:00 to 12:59
And yes, I agree, just using a 24 hour clock makes the most sense.
But most people are stuck on and don't want to give up the centuries old 12 hour clock system.
Midnight = 12:00pm
One minute after midnight = 12:01am.
Noon = 12:00m
One minute after noon = 12:01pm
Technically, 12:00 is neither AM nor PM, but by convention, noon is 12:00pm and midnight is 12:00am.
I strongly prefer the 24 clock, and have all my clocks set that way (though I have an analog face as the default face on my Apple watch because it provides the most usable space for face complications).
Technically, 12:00 is neither AM nor PM, but by convention, noon is 12:00pm and midnight is 12:00am.
That was the convention created for digital clocks. Others have suggested on this thread that the standard I detailed was what the standard was prior to the digital clock era. Someone even mentioned a 1953 US federal government publications standards document, but did not provide a link to it.
Someone even mentioned a 1953 US federal government publications standards document, but did not provide a link to it.
Not everything is linkable, but if you are that much of masochist ...
"United States Government Printing Office Style Manual" (PDF). govinfo. U.S. Government Publishing Office. January 1953. pp. 152, 267.
The PDF file is 530Mb, downloadable in its entirety from https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GPO-GOVMAN-1953-01-01/.
Not everything is linkable, but if you are that much of masochist ...
That wasn't the point of my comment.
Technically, 12:00 is neither AM nor PM, but by convention, noon is 12:00pm and midnight is 12:00am.
That doesn't make sense. Midnight is 12:00 - that's non-zero so it belongs to the day before and therefore ought to be pm. IIRC that was the convention in the UK when the Sids were subscribing for shares in privatised companies - applications would close at 12:00pm the day of the offer, meaning midnight.
AJ
Midnight is 12:00 - that's non-zero so it belongs to the day before and therefore ought to be pm.
No, that makes no sense because 12:00:01 is AM So by your rule, you go in 1 second from PM to AM without the hour changing. Of course, that also makes PM one second longer than AM which shouldn't be right either.
00:00:01am.
Not talking about a 24hour clock. And that's just wrong. It would just be 00:00:01. There is no AM/PM on a 24 hour clock.
I disagree. Midnight may not last very long but there is a time after 11:59pm and before 12:01 am. It can be either 12pm or 12am. Am is ante meridiem. Pm is post meridiem.
My memory from the US Navy tells me midnight was 00:00 and in accordance with that, it was part of the new day, not the previous one. so 23:59:59.99999 to whatever degree of precision you want to use is the previous day, but anything after it ticks over on the non-decimal value is the new one.
Not that you'd want to log anything at 00:00 in any case, but in the event you wanted to...
anything after it
...except in the case of days with an added leap second, when it's followed by 23:59:60 (for a whole second) before rolling over to the next day. Or, if the Earth's spin continues it's recent trend, one day 23:59:59 may be skipped entirely with a negative leap second
Or, if the Earth's spin continues it's recent trend
As I understand it as there are several effects at play.
A figure skater in a spin will speed up as they tuck in or slow down if they spread there arms out. Has to do with how widely the mass is spread out around the axis of rotation.
Likewise the earth's rotation will slow down as water moves from the poles towards the equator or speed up as water mass shifts towards the poles away from the equator as the climate changes.
The current climate trend will not continue indefinitely. We are living in an ice age that consists of glacial periods interspersed with relatively short interglacial periods. Relatively being the interglacials lasting tens of thousands of years vs the glacial periods lasting 100s of thousands of years.
There is nothing mankind has done or could do to stop the inevitable end of the current interglacial period. Though when that will happen is almost impossible to predict.
Also, tectonic activity like earth quakes and volcanic eruptions will affect the earth's rate of rotation potentially in either direction depending on when and where.
A figure skater in a spin will speed up as they tuck in or slow down if they spread there arms out. Has to do with how widely the mass is spread out around the axis of rotation.
True, but spreading the arms also increases the air resistance of the skater's body, adding to the slow-down.
I've no numbers β and I'm to lazy to research it β so I've no clue how much each contributes to the effect.
HM.
There is nothing mankind has done or could do to stop the inevitable end of the current interglacial period.
Hmm, that's debatable. The start of "The Little Ice Age" may have been the start of the next glacial period, but the human activity β burning more wood, peat and coal; clearing wood and forests, especially for pasture; finally the starting of the industrial age β caused much more CO2 and methane released into the atmosphere. I believe we are still recovering from the "Little Ice Age", the climate of Greenland is still colder than at the time of Erik the Red.
HM.
The start of "The Little Ice Age" may have been the start of the next glacial period, but the human activity β burning more wood, peat and coal; clearing wood and forests, especially for pasture; finally the starting of the industrial age
There is a dead tree book, also available as eBook β Fallen Angels by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle & Michael Flynn; Baen Books, 1992 β telling the story of the environmentalists' enforcement of anti-pollution laws causing the next ice age.
I bought the dead tree version and, IIRC, later on got the eBook from one of the Baen CDs.
HM.
Long term trend is the Earth's rotation is slowing down, not speeding up. Estimates are the day during the Jurassic era would be 23.5 hours long by today's reckoning. When multicellular life first evolved on earth, it is believed that Earth only had a 23 hour day.
Edit, need to check my source better. Here's a worksheet from NASA on the subject.
https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/Grade35/6Page58.pdf
Long term trend is the Earth's rotation is slowing down, not speeding up.
Yup, which is why I specified 'recent' - it's only very recently that the 4-5 year trend of shortening of the day has dropped the length to under 24hr, as can be seen in the graph in the second linked article. Also from that article,
At Earth's current rate of spin, a negative leap second could be triggered around ten years from now.
but also
Overall, the length of day on Earth is increasing by about 0.1 milliseconds per year. But within that general trend, the length of day fluctuates in unpredictable ways.
Long term trend is the Earth's rotation is slowing down, not speeding up.
Presumably that signifies the planet is accreting more mass than it's secreting.
AJ
Presumably that signifies the planet is accreting more mass than it's secreting.
AJ
Not necessarily, although the conclusion is likely for other reasons.
Presumably, the average mass infalling to Earth, meteors mostly, has 0 angular momentum WRT the center of the Earth.
OTOH, a molecule in the upper atmosphere has a velocity WRT the center of the Earth which is the sum of various velocities, including its rotational velocity. For that sum to exceed escape, it's likelier for its rotational velocity to be aligned with the other elements in the sum. Thus, its escaping will reduce angular momentum.
A big chunk of it is tidal drag from our relatively enormous moon. Through gravitational interactions, Luna saps energy from Earth's rotation, which gradually slows Earth's spin and simultaneously lifts Luna into a higher orbit. Over the extreme long term, we'll end up tidally locked to Luna like it already is to us, and our days will be a month long.
I thought it just gets away eventually, long before a mutual lock, but might be wrong.
Then without moon stabilization Earth would wobble much more sometimes going over pole to pole against the sun, sometimes rotating nearly in plane.
without moon stabilization Earth would
...eventually be tidally locked to the Sun (tides on Earth are about 2/3 due to the Moon, 1/3 due to the Sun). Of course, that would loft the Earth to a higher orbit, maybe even out of the Goldilocks zone (IDK how to calculate this), but either way, life would get rather problematic. On the gripping hand, the Sun would undergo end-of-life inflation before that happens, also making life rather problematic. We need to get off this ball of rock.
Niven had a short, One Face, which looks at some of the problems with this.
On the gripping hand, the Sun would undergo end-of-life inflation before that happens, also making life rather problematic. We need to get off this ball of rock.
Whether we ever get off this rock or not, will humanity last long enough for either of those things to happen?
will humanity last long enough for either of those things to happen?
Did you intentionally state it this way? If so, neither one would happen if humanity ceases to exist. ;-)
HM.
Did you intentionally state it this way? If so, neither one would happen if humanity ceases to exist. ;-)
If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, did it make a noise?
How much does it matter to us if they happen or not if humanity is long gone from the universe before they happen?
our days will be a month long.
...but the moon will be in a higher orbit, so the orbit will be longer than a present-day month.
...but the moon will be in a higher orbit, so the orbit will be longer than a present-day month.
The lunar orbit is slightly shorter than the average month today.
How far out will it be by the time the Earth is tide locked to the Moon, assuming it doesn't escape first?
Midnight is not 11:59:xxxx or 12:00 or 00-00:XXXX.
It is the transition point. 00:00 is an immediately after Midnight and the beginning of a new day.
As to the designation of Noon - it can be 12N to distinguish it from Midnight - 12M
Confusion
"conΒ·fuΒ·sion
/kΙnΛfyoΝoZHΙn/
noun
1.
lack of understanding; uncertainty.
"there seems to be some confusion about which system does what"
Similar:
uncertainty
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hesitation
hesitancy
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Opposite:
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the state of being bewildered or unclear in one's mind about something.
"she looked about her in confusion"
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disconcertion
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