Is noon 12am or 12 pm ?
Noon = 12PM. Midnight = 12AM. or vice-versa?
Have I had it wrong all my life 
25 Answers
Ian, I have always thought that noon & midnight are very similar to the theoretical zero year, which we know never occurred...it went from 1 BC to 1 AD (correct me if I am wrong!)... so it's either 12:00 noon or 12:00 midnight, but not AM nor PM... one second later and it's AM or PM respectively, but at high noon and the witching hour, it is neither... simply noon and midnight....
Anyone else onboard? 
Let's look at the Latin involved: a.m. is ante (before) meridiem and p.m. is post (after) meridiem. So the question becomes:
what is meridiem? meridiem=noon (midday, literally)
So a.m. is before noon and p.m. is past noon.
What is noon?
The time or point in the sun's path at which the sun is on the local meridian. Also called noontide, noontime.
As you may recall the sun travels from east (rises) to west (sets). Meridian miles are those longitudal lines that run from the North to South poles. So when the sun intersects the meridian line passing through that location it is noon at that location. A layman's description is more commonly stated as when the sun is directly overhead.
00:00 is 12am or 12midnight (not midday) this is when a new day starts and half of the night has elapsed.
12:00 is 12pm or 12 noon (midday) when 12 hours of the 24-hour day have elapsed.
Ian I love it!!! Personally I was brought up to believe that 12AM was way too late for kids to be up so that should answer that question but it is a real good mind teaser.
This is why timecards and airports use the 24 hour clock!!
I found this argument searching a little bit:
"Another way of knowing that 12 noon can not be 12:00 am is that 12:00 am can not be followed one minute later by 12:01 pm. "
It makes sense to me, but I also found a lot of people saying that there is not an "official" definition of this.
So, to avoid confusion, I would use 12:00 noon and 12:00 midnight.
In the USA the convention is that noon is 12PM and midnight is 12AM.
Of course this can be endlessly argued. The legal profession has generally taken a conservative position when writing effective dates for contracts and law. They usually specify something like "12:01am" or "11:59pm", so there can be no attempt at misinterpretation. 
Well, I have always come alive around 12AM, but have always known it to be midnight. So to answer your question, 12AM is the beginning of a brand new day and 12PM is the middle of the day or noon.
This is funny: my American proofreader has once corrected 12 pm and replaced it with 12 noon to avoid the misunderstanding discussed here.
It would appear that I am just as correct saying noon = 12am as those who say it is 12pm
Perhaps on a philosophical level, but seeing as how all 12-hour digital clocks and watches as well as--as others pointed out--12-hour clocks on computers and store "hours" signs and etc use the convention of 12PM for noon and 12AM for midnight, I feel that on a practical level it is correct to say 12PM = noon and 12AM = midnight (since it is such a widely used convention).
Eso es mi "dos centavos," al menos. =)
In my head I will still believe that 12.00am should come 1 minute after 11.59am
That puts you on a very slippery slope. If that is your position, how can you argue against 2 minutes after 12:00 am being anything other than "12:02 am"? The system is, fundamentally, arbitrary.
One could, of course, speak of several billion minutes (or whatever) after the flood (as described in the Epic of Gilgamesh) but that doesn't really resolve the problem of before/after some arbitrary point in time..
In my head I will still believe that 12.00am should come 1 minute after 11.59am
That puts you on a very slippery slope. If that is your position, how can you argue against 2 minutes after 12:00 am being anything other than "12:02 am"? The system is, fundamentally, arbitrary.
One could, of course, speak of several billion minutes (or whatever) after the flood (as described in the Epic of Gilgamesh) but that doesn't really resolve the problem of before/after some arbitrary point in time..
Well, I temporarily set my computer clock to 11:59 pm. This would obviously be in the evening, 1 minute away from midnight.
I then watched it and right at 12:00:00 it also changed to AM.
Therefore, according to Windows, midnight is 12:00 AM.
I have used the 24 hour clock for so long I hardly think in AM or PM at all. if I have a meeting at three it is 1500, if it is at 9:30, it is 0930. Because of my work I have had to manage time zones from Europe to Asia and this was the most practical way to do it. My cell phone,computer and clocks are all on the 24 hour clock. So for me 1200 is noon and 0000 is midnight.Easy! It therefore is little wonder that I cannot tell time in the Spanish way.
Well - I have always thought of 12am as noon.
How many others have thought the same?
I know we can say 12 noon and 12 midnight - but do we really have to?
