12h clock is for pussies that cant read clocks
Almost all clocks are 12-hour clocks, even
most supposedly 24-hour clocks.
But yes, 24-hour time is superior because it uses fewer bytes to send the plaintext version of any given time. However, military time beats both 12-hour time and 24-hour time.
0030 vs 0:30 vs 12:30 AM (4 bytes vs 4 bytes vs 8 bytes)
1130 vs 11:30 vs 11:30 AM (4 bytes vs 5 bytes vs 8 bytes)
1230 vs 12:30 vs 12:30 PM (4 bytes vs 5 bytes vs 8 bytes)
2330 vs 23:30 vs 11:30 PM (4 bytes vs 5 bytes vs 8 bytes)
For any given time, military time is strictly smaller than AM/PM time.
Formats with higher information per bit are superior to the inverse.
Minutes in a day: 1440, or ~10.49185 informational bits
Military time (HHMM format): 4 bytes on average (~0.32787 informational bits per stored bit)
24-hour time (H:MM format): 4.58333 bytes on average (~0.28614 informational bits per stored bit)
Standard time (H:MM TT format): 7.16667 bytes on average (~0.18300 informational bits per stored bit)
And the clear winner is, unsurprisingly, computers.
Computer time (binary format): 11 bits on average (~0.95380 informational bits per stored bit)
Though I don't expect binary format to catch on any time soon.
Weird stuff I do: composing long posts on a subject no one actually wanted that much information on.
