Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1920-08-05
TWENTY FOUR HOUR DIAL
Army system Of Recording Time
AboIishcs Midnight

II 10 nossible that London may try out
the TRANSFORMATIONS clock; that Is q
clock with a dial marked 0 to % instead
of from 1 to u. Already the practice
of numbering the hours of the day ac-
cortling to this method is In effect In
France, italy and some other European
countries, and is followed In western
Canada in connection with railroad time.
The British Home Secretary has appoint
ed committee to consider the advisable
ity of adopting the twenty-four hour
dial and the new idea is explained as
follows in The Manchester Guardian:
The system of numbering the hours
of the day from to "a is no novelty.
The astronomical day has always ben
divided in that fashion and 0 with
astronomers is noon. In several Cont
mental countries and also in Canada a
similar system was in use long before
the war chiefly for the purpose Of rail-
way time schedules, though in all those
everyday applications of the principle q
represents midnight. With that as a
starting point the hours are counted as
on the ordinary clock face up to II. At
tor that u takes the place of 1, II Of 9.
and so on up to e and the reappear-
aBce of zero.
THE ARMY SYSTEM
I'm the earlier half of 1918 it was de-
cided to make this system of recording
the hours OF the day universal through
out the British Army. at home and
abroad. Tho idea was that the change
would minimize the possibility Of 10
hour error In any specified time by the
omission or misleading of a. m. or p. m.
tho 'ack emma or pip emma of the
army sienalers
Detailed instruction. we're laid down
for the recording Of time under the new
aystsui. 1t was always to be expressed
In four figures, the first two for tho hour,
tn, second for the minute Five past 3
IN the morning, for instance, was to be
expressed as 0sB-never 3.5 siunply.
Helf-past three is o3.3O: four O'Clock is
MW. Transferred into the correspond
ing hours o. tho afternoon these times
would be expressed: Five past three as
1905; half-pass 3 as 1870, and o'clock
as 1900 Five minutes to midnight be-
comes 1855; five minutes past midnight
Is O0G5.
Into this careful system the army
introduced yet another safeguard To
prevent Observation-Disclosures possibly
TO avoid the appearance of so curious an
hour as oo.00-it was laid down that dis
fe"'S~' "Cio HeNer 10 De C1me0 at mid
night From the point of view of the
military message the hour was abolished
All communications were to be- timed ,s
| either $3.50 or O0G.
This four-f1gure method is the ons
used In most armies. but the usual Con.
tinental timetables do not bother win
four figures when two of them are m.
necessary. What military usage would
term oS.o5 is simply S. and the cor.
responding hour of the evening is ~ &
not zoos $40
Clocks the faces and mechanisn, .,
winch are designated to record al, tho
hours from to %. are in common nee
on stations where the system is in force
But the ordinary clock can quite easily
be made to record both twelve and
twenty-four hour time by FASTING a rib
bon Of paper around the circumference
or Its glass in such a way that If does
not obliterate the figures on the face and
then marking the hours from 13 TO o
against the corresponding figures for the
f1rst half of the day. The twenty-four
hour system needs some considerable
pauses for reflection before itx can be
readily grasped by people accustomed to
the older method and except for rail-
ways 1t is difficult to see that it has any
| advantage for civilian needs