Time

by Hla Min

Updated : June 2025

AM, PM & Military Time

• AM stands for Ante Meridian.
• PM stands for Post Meridian.
• A day consists of 12 hours for AM, and 12 hours for PM.
• Some missed schedules (e.g. flights) due to the AM/PM confusion.
• Military time uses the 24 hour notation.

Daylight Savings Time (DST)

• Some countries implement DST.
• In the US, some states do not implement DST.
• “Spring Forward. Fall Back” has some advantages in the early days.
• Legislation changes have moved the start and end dates for DST.
• Some say that DST does not save energy, and the laws should be repealed.

Clocks in ancient times

• The ancient Burmese Kingdom once employed the 60-hour day using the “water” clock. Day time can range from 24 to 32 hours. Ditto for Evening & Night time.
• Some early civilizations use the Sun Dial.

General

• The use of atomic clocks has to be supplemented by smart algorithms for idiosyncrasies introduced by DST, Leap second (to name a few).
• Depending on the culture, the Day of Week may start on a Sunday or a Monday.
• There are numerous software libraries dealing with Calendars, Dates, Times and Holidays.

U Khin Maung Zaw (EC76) wrote :

DST in US, especially at the Spring time when the clock moves an hour ahead (Spring Forward), always have some good stories. Some years back we used to have a large group of people playing soccer on Sunday early mornings, as is called pickup games. It never failed to see people showed up late, forgot to reset the clock, every year. Thank God! The change was on Sundays, or else there would be more interesting work-related stories.

Microsoft Windows have those dates usually baked into the system, as a result when the DST was extended 2008, they had to release a patch to fix the issue.

A bill (a law) to make “DST/Daylight Saving Time” permanent so as not to readjust the clocks twice a year, was approved by the US Congress’s upper chamber, the Senate in March this year. https://www.reuters.com/…/us-senate-approves-bill-that…/.

Unfortunately, Congress’s lower chamber, the House of Representatives, so far fails to pick it up for vote. As a result, the law is in limbo now.

It will only become law only after the President of the US of A sign it after the House of Representatives approve it.

Just a small technicality…

Posts

• Clocks
• Calendars
• Time Management