# When does a new day begin?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [October 24, 2024, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140 "2024-10-24T08:35:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Chumba\_Wumba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chumba_Wumba)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140/1 "2024-10-24T08:35:53Z")
The title is the post. Did anybody anticipate the Great Depression? Sure, in retrospect it seems obvious, but hindsight is always 20/20. Weren’t there any economists, businessmen or anybody at all who saw what was coming?
I ask because my mother told us kids that our grandfather somehow saw the writing on the wall. He quit his railroad job, withdrew all his savings and liquidated all his substantial property (which wasn’t much, he was just another working stiff with maybe an eighth grade education) and moved his family from Atlanta to a small farm in Cobb County north of Marietta, which back then was way out in the sticks. They grew their own food. Even then, they had hard times when the stock market crashed. They had to pinch every penny 'til it screamed, they patched and re-patched their clothes, and sometimes they resorted to barter when there simply wasn’t any money–but they never went hungry. My mom used to joke that they were the best fed naked people in the world.
So the thing that puzzles me is
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### Author:  [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140/2 "2024-10-24T08:50:52Z")
@Chumba_Wumba Your post seems to have been cut off.
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### Author:  [@colinfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colinfred)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140/3 "2024-10-24T09:01:04Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#):
>
> Your post seems to have been cut off.
He was knocked down
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### Author:  [@blue\_infinity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blue_infinity)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140/4 "2024-10-24T09:17:55Z")
But he’ll get up again
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### Author:  [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140/5 "2024-10-24T09:24:08Z")
Will we ever keep him down?
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### Author:  [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140/6 "2024-10-24T12:07:57Z")
Off the top of my head, midnight is the usual beginning of a new day. The time 00:00 at the beginning of the day to 24:00 at the end (which is coterminous with 00:00 of the next day). Astronomers use noon as the start of the day, but I don’t how they record (-12:00 to 12:00)?
Various cultures use sunset or dawn to mark a new day, but scientific precision is less important for them.
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### Author:  [@colinfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colinfred)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140/7 "2024-10-24T12:58:52Z")
That’s really not what he’s asking. The OP is cutoff, so we didn’t get his full question, but he’s clearly asking something about metaphorical days.
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140/8 "2024-10-24T13:04:50Z")
Wall Street indexes predicted nine out of the last five recessions! – Paul Samuelson
Lots of people predict major events constantly. By chance, some of them are correct. But whether that’s repeatable or supported is another story.
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140/9 "2024-10-24T13:22:31Z")
Actually I’ve been wondering myself. Why doesn’t the day officially begin @ our 6 am time? As in roughly when the sun rises? By contrast nothing special happens at midnight.
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### Author:  [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140/10 "2024-10-24T13:26:01Z")
> [@colinfred](#):
>
> That’s really not what he’s asking.
It’s explicitly what they’re asking:
> [@Chumba\_Wumba](#):
>
> The title is the post.
Everything after that is clearly an accidental copy and paste.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140/11 "2024-10-24T13:29:28Z")
> [@Pleonast](#):
>
> Astronomers use noon as the start of the day, but I don’t how they record (-12:00 to 12:00)?
Nowadays they express parts of the day using decimals: for example, JD 2441778.024
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140/12 "2024-10-24T13:31:40Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#):
>
> Actually I’ve been wondering myself. Why doesn’t the day officially begin @ our 6 am time? As in roughly when the sun rises? By contrast nothing special happens at midnight.
Blame the 1884 Meridian Conference… [ETA the concept of the civil calendar day starting at midnight, as opposed to nautical and astronomical days, was already extant, though!]
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### Author:  [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140/13 "2024-10-24T13:32:49Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#):
>
> By contrast nothing special happens at midnight.
Yeah. Unlike noon, which is directly observed when the sun is at its highest, there’s no way to directly know when it’s midnight. You need to have a sophisticated understanding of the stars or a timing mechanism to know when it’s midnight.
Sunset and dawn are directly observable, but float with respect to each other and noon. Not a problem for a preindustrial culture, but extra complication if you want uniform timing.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140/14 "2024-10-24T13:39:24Z")
> [@Pleonast](#):
>
> extra complication if you want uniform timing
Btw scientists and others _do_ nowadays want uniform timing, which is why they use atomic clocks rather than try to observe the sky for that.
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140/15 "2024-10-24T13:43:37Z")
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-a-new-day-begin/1009140/16 "2024-10-24T13:46:09Z")
I’m going to close this thread until @Chumba_Wumba returns to tell the mods what the goal was. Maybe the title should have been “when she’s a new era begin?” Maybe it was an accidental paste. Maybe the whole post was an accident. Maybe the account has been hacked by a bot.
@Chumba_Wumba, you can’t post again because I’ve closed the thread, but if you report any post and click “something else” you can tell the mods what you want done.