Friday, March 9, 2012

Where did reckoning a new day begin at midnight, and by who?

The ancient Egyptians are believed to have divided the daylight time into twelve decans. Then the same duodecimal system was applied to the night time, giving a day of 24 hours.



But for many, like the Jews, the day starts at sunrise or at sunset, not midnight. Having studied astro-navigation and read a lot about the history of navigation, I can't find any person or time when it was decided that midnight would be the first hour of the day but it makes sense in that we sleep at night to wake up ... in a new day.



So, I would say: common sense did it.Where did reckoning a new day begin at midnight, and by who?
am/pm strands for ante meridiem and post meridiem, this is Latin, so I don't believe it is correct about this comming from Egyptians. I believe this comes from Rome. But still searching for the facts.

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Where did reckoning a new day begin at midnight, and by who?
Likely mind-day or high noon with the sun directly overhead was conceived of first because it can be easily established by observing the movement of shadows (sundials, etc.). It would follow that midnight would be 12 hours (one half rotation of the earth) later. The day could not logically start at midday. Perhaps the 'day' could start at dawn but that varies with the season due to the tilt of the earth, where only the equinoxes exhibit equal daylight and nightlight. Likely the term 'midnight' became more important with the invention of clocks with dials, where 12 is both midday and midnight (you can't see midnight on a sundial, because it is too dark!).

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