Midnight

For other uses, see Midnight (disambiguation).

Midnight, literally "the middle of the night", is a time arbitrarily designated to determine the end of a day and the beginning of the next in some, mainly Western, cultures. Originally midnight depended on the time of the sunset and dawn, varying according to the seasons.

Solar midnight is that time opposite of solar noon, when the sun is closest to nadir and the night is furthest from dusk and dawn. Due to the advent of time zones, which makes time identical across a range of meridians, it rarely coincides with midnight on a clock, but can be computed on a number of websites that perform solar time calculations. Solar midnight is dependent on longitude rather than on a time zone.

Start and end of day

Midnight marks both the start and the end of each day in civil time throughout the world. Since, therefore, two midnights are associated with each day, conventions are needed to distinguish between them.

In the 24-hour time notation, the solution is very simple: "00:00" refers to the start and "24:00" to the end of a given date. In other words, "today at 24:00" is the same point in time as "tomorrow at 00:00".

With the 12-hour time notation, which is still used in Armenia, Greece, and parts of the English-speaking and South American world, there is no simple and unambiguous notation for midnight. For the official U.S. Government position, see http://tf.nist.gov/general/misc.htm

While it has become common practice for computers and digital clocks in these regions to display "12:00 a.m." for midnight and "12:00 p.m." for noon, these notations provide no clear and unambiguous way to distinguish between midnight and noon. It is actually improper to use "a.m." and "p.m." when referring to 12:00. The abbreviation a.m. stands for ante meridiem or before noon and p.m. stands for post meridiem or after noon. Since noon is neither after noon or before noon, neither abbreviation is correct (although the length of the error is determined by the smallest unit of time- 12:00:01 p.m. would be correctly notated). Similarly, midnight is both twelve hours before as well as twelve hours after noon, so both are ambiguous as to the date intended. The most common ways to represent these times are, (a) to use a 24-hour clock (00:00, 12:00, and 24:00), (b) to use "12 noon" or "12 midnight", although unless the person is referring to a general time and not a specific day, "12 midnight" is still ambiguous, and (c) to use "12:01 a.m." or "11:59 p.m." This final usage is common in the travel industry, especially train and plane schedules, to avoid confusion as to passengers' schedules. [1]

Some religious calendars continue to begin the day at another time — for example, at dusk in the Hebrew calendar and the Islamic calendar.

In many developed nations, particularly in Northern America, the colloquial "beginning of the next day" is sometime between 2-5am, as many people with daylight work schedules stay awake past midnight. A majority of TV stations advertise in accordance with this. In the United Kingdom, television and radio broadcasters consider a day as starting and finishing at 6am.

Cultural meanings

In traditional magical thinking, midnight refers to solar midnight, which is opposite solar noon. These form an axis linking the mundane world with otherworlds by being the apogee of darkness and the perigee of light. Thus, traditional midnight is associated with chaos, death, underworld and mystery. It was seen as a moment when sacrum manifests itself and epiphanies were most likely. Of course the epiphanies expected were those associated with darkness, so it was thought that at midnight, visitation from spirits, ghosts, demons and devils were common.

All the supernatural creatures of darkness — reminiscent of feared nocturnal predators — were believed to haunt the night, their potency greatest at its central point, midnight. According to Slavic folklore, midnight was time when strzygas rose from graves to suck the blood of mortals, zmoras assailed the sleeping to steal their breath, and devils came for sinners. Polish Jews believed that it was the time when dybbuks possessed folk, causing insanity.

As night's attributes are chaos and primordiality, all the acts of summoning from otherworlds were easiest to perform at the culmination of the night. Supernatural entities like demons and devils universally answered a human call — be it death wish, curse of famine, prostration or pact with the devil. All the acts of sorcery, witchcraft, necromancy were easiest then. While some beliefs stated that elaborate rituals were needed, some other folklore ascribed unholy power to such simple acts as calling the devil at crossroads at midnight. Even peeking into a mirror at night (without a reliable clock one could never be certain what time it was) was dangerous, as the devil himself could have looked back.

Midnight was also the time to gather the ingredients used in magical acts done at other times, so various herbs were thought to be most potent when harvested at midnight.

A piece of Christian folklore held that, because Jesus had been born in a stable, animals could speak at the midnight between Christmas Eve and Christmas.

Fictional Character

Midnight is a character in the Forgotten Realms series that is a magic user and worshiper of the goddes of magic, Mystra. She is found in the Avatar Trilogy