Midnight

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For other uses, see Midnight (disambiguation)

Midnight, literally "the middle of the night", was 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 latitude and 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. While it has become common practice for computers and digital clocks in these regions to display "12:00 a.m." for midnight, other notations such as "12 midnight" are also encountered. As these notations provide no clear and unambiguous way to distinguish between midnight at the start and at the end of a day, it has become customary in these regions to move deadlines away from midnight, for example to "11:59 p.m." or "12:01 a.m." (23:59 or 00:01), to associate them unambiguously with a single date.

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

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.

See also

• Midnight sun
• Midnight blue
• Midnight Commander
• Midnight Express
• Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
• Midnight Cowboy
• Midnight Oil
• Midnight's Children
• Captain Midnightda:Midnat

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