Abstract
THE TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR DAY.—The spirit of standardisation and unification is abroad, and one of its latest manifestations is the attempt to reduce the various methods of time-reckoning to a single system. Astronomers have made an important contribution to this end in deciding to commence the astronomical day at midnight instead of noon. This reform will commence in the year 1925, an earlier date being inconvenient for the various nautical almanacs. While astronomers will gain, on the whole, by the change, yet in some respects, notably in the case of sets of observations extending on both sides of midnight, it will cause inconvenience; this gives them a certain claim to ask for some sacrifice on the part of the general public in order to achieve the further unification which is now desired; this is the substitution of 24-hour reckoning for the present system of a.m. and p.m.
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Our Astronomical Column . Nature 104, 100 (1919). https://doi.org/10.1038/104100b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/104100b0