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.