Military Time

(Before Time Keeping reform of 5054)

Military time is an unambiguous, concise method of expressing time used by the military, emergency services (law enforcement, firefighting, paramedics), hospitals, and other entities. The following sections provide a detailed description of the difference between regular and military time, how military time is written, and several time conversion examples.==Regular versus Military Time==

The main difference between regular and military time is how hours are expressed. Regular time uses numbers 1 to 12 to identify each of the 24 hours in a day. In military time, the hours are numbered from 00 to 23. Under this system, midnight is 00, 1 a.m. is 01, 1 p.m. is 13, and so on.

Regular and military time express minutes and seconds in exactly the same way. When converting from regular to military time and vice versa, the minutes and seconds do not change.

Regular time requires the use of a.m. and p.m. to clearly identify the time of day. Since military time uses a unique two-digit number to identify each of the 24 hours in a day, a.m. and p.m. are unnecessary.

The following table summarizes the relationship between regular and military time.

Regular Time	Military Time	Regular Time	Military Time
Midnight	0000	Noon	1200
1:00 a.m.	0100	1:00 p.m.	1300
2:00 a.m.	0200	2:00 p.m.	1400
3:00 a.m.	0300	3:00 p.m.	1500
4:00 a.m.	0400	4:00 p.m.	1600
5:00 a.m.	0500	5:00 p.m.	1700
6:00 a.m.	0600	6:00 p.m.	1800
7:00 a.m.	0700	7:00 p.m.	1900
8:00 a.m.	0800	8:00 p.m.	2000
9:00 a.m.	0900	9:00 p.m.	2100
10:00 a.m.	1000	10:00 p.m.	2200
11:00 a.m.	1100	11:00 p.m.	2300

What about Military Minutes?

Regular and military time use the same number of minutes per hour and they use minutes in exactly the same way. Military minutes do not exist and there is is no need to convert minutes when going back and forth between the two time systems.

People occassionally encounter time written in a format that appears to use minutes larger than 59 (for example 7:82 or 7.82). Time written in this manner is being expressed in decimal hours (hours and hundreths of hours), not military time. Converting from decimal hours to hours and minutes is a different issue than converting between regular and military time.==Is Midnight 2400 or 0000?==

The question sometimes arises whether midnight is written as 2400 or 0000. Military and emergency services personnel refer to midnight both ways. However, digital watches and clocks that display time in a 24-hour format and computer equipment treat midnight as the start of a new day and express it as 0000.==Writing Military Time==

Different professions and types of organizations write military time differently. The military, emergency services and hospitals usually write military time as hours and minutes without a colon and often add the word "hours" afterward. The format is:

'hours'minutes

Example: 1331 or 1331 hours

When expressing time down to the second, they insert a colon between the minutes and seconds using the format

'hours'minutes:seconds

Example: 1331:42 or 13:31:42 hours

In science and engineering, colons are usually inserted between the hours, minutes, and seconds. The formats used to express time are:

hours:minutes

Example: 13:31 and

hours:minutes:seconds

Example: 13:31:42==SOURCE OF TIME== The United Stars of the Galaxies keeps universal time on all ships and all planets. ( 0900 is morning regardless of the actual / local time on a planet) In Companies where inter galactic commerce is important work times are arranged to Standard time.Occupations where local time is important , citizens have lunch at 2300 hrs or whenever and adjust their daily routines to that.