Clocks show 24 hour times, especially the digital clocks. When a digital clock shows time between 0:00 to 12:00, it is ‘am’ time, i.e. it is morning time, and before noon or midday.

If the time on the digital clock shows 12:01 to 23:59, it is ‘pm’ time, i.e. afternoon time. In other words, it is the time from midday to midnight.

When you are reading the time on an analog clock (i.e. a clock with a clock face, hour and minute hands), you will read the time as 11 am (in the morning), or 11 pm (in the night). On a digital clock with 24 hour time, the same will be displayed as 11:00, and 23:00 hours.

To convert a ‘pm’ time to a 24 hour time, we add 12 hours to the given ‘pm’ time. The ‘am’ time is the same in 24 hour form.

Let us look at a few example of times shown in 24 hour form:

3 am	=	03:00 hours
5.30 am	=	05:30 hours
2.25 pm	=	14:25 hours (we add 12 hours to 2:25 to get 14:25 hours)
1.50 pm	=	13:50 hours (we add 12 hours to 1:50 to get 13:50 hours)
20 past 8 in the morning	=	08:00 hours
26 past 8 in the evening	=	20:26 hours (adding 12 hours to 8:26 to get 20:26)
10 to 4 in the morning	=	03:50

 

Now let us look at some examples of time converted from 24 hour form to a 12 hour time form:

03:17	=	3.17 am
08:34	=	8.34 am
12:26	=	12.26 pm (26 minutes past noon)
23:50	=	11.50 pm (10 minutes to midnight, or 50 minutes past 11 in the night)
00:29	=	0.29 am (29 minutes past midnight)

 

Now let us look at conversions of time, and a few examples of time conversions.