At three minutes and four seconds after 2 AM on the 6th of May this year, the time and date will be 02:03:04 05/06/07. This will never happen again.
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Date Weirdness
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Posted on: May 5, 2007 8:59 AM, by "GrrlScientist"
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Comments
And if you read the clock in military or European ways, it will happen at three minutes and four seconds after 2 AM on the 5th of June.
Posted by: G in INdiana | May 5, 2007 9:09 AM
That will be Julian day 2454226.585463, an instant in time that will never be repeated, not ever, even unto the end of time.
As a matter of fact, EVERY Julian day value is unique and will never recur.
The 2-3-4-5-6-7 sequence is simply an artifact of the particular denomination of time. Do it in octal or hexadecimal, and you'll have similar results but at different times.
Isn't this a bit silly?
Posted by: Graying Grouch | May 5, 2007 9:51 AM
Oh great, we have to wait another month for this. :-(
Bob
Posted by: Bob O'H | May 5, 2007 10:04 AM
Never happen again?
This would only be true if you expect the universe to end in less than one century ;-). There may even be a reader who will still be alive in 2107.
Posted by: Paul Hutchinson | May 5, 2007 10:29 AM
And if you go to Japan you just have to wait until the seventh year of the next emperors reign (you use the date of the reign along with western months, days and times).
Posted by: Janne | May 5, 2007 11:25 AM
Yeah, and one year and one month and one day and one hour and one minute and one second before that it was 01:02:03 04/05/06. So what.
Posted by: Karl | May 5, 2007 1:30 PM
In other, more civilized countries, the date is not listed in the nonsensical manner of month/day/year; it is listed as highest resolution to lowest resolution, or vice versa. E.g. the date you mention would be 06/05/07 or 07/05/06. I prefer the latter convention, year, month, day, because when i use this to names computer files, an alphanumeric sorting turns out the same as a chronological sorting.
Posted by: Mustafa Mond, FCD | May 5, 2007 8:07 PM
I always thought that the dating convention reflected how people spoke.
In English speaking countries people normally say the date Day/Month/Year (6th May, 2007) whilst in those that speak American they normally say the date as Month/Day/Year (May 6th, 2007); here, in Saudi, they normally give the date in the Day/Month/Year format even though they mostly speak American as that is how it is said in Arabic. Oh yes it is the year 1428 here.
I also use your Year/Month/Day format on files, makes for an easier life and it is how I was taught all those years ago, but I don't forsee it catching on in normal speech.
Posted by: Chris' Wills | May 6, 2007 1:13 AM
It is actually 2007-05-06 in the more civilized countries ;)
(See ISO 8601.)
Posted by: Peter Lund | May 6, 2007 10:15 AM
Using the convention assumed, in addition to having happened in 1907, 1807, ... and will happen again in 2107, 2207, ..., it also happened 24 or so times on the day, once in each (notational) time zone. (There are more zones then the notational 24, so it happens more than 24 times.) Martians and other calendars also challenge the "uniqueness" of the many moments.
Posted by: blf | May 6, 2007 12:48 PM
Does any country actually use this convention in day to day correspondence and/or speech or is no-one more civilised?
Posted by: Chris' Wills | May 6, 2007 1:27 PM