[REBOL] Re: On ordinal and cardinal numbers...
From: kenneth:nwinet at: 10-Jul-2001 6:59
Aw Joel, ya took away my thunder. Great job though...
From: "Joel Neely" <[joel--neely--fedex--com]>
> 11:58 11:59 12:00 12:01 12:02
> ...: : : : :...
> ...TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTmWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW...
>
> At the "midnight boundary" between e.g. Tuesday and Wednesday,
> (shown by the "T" and "W" labels) the ownership of the *moment*
> of midnight could be argued about all night (;-) but I think we
> would all agree that the *span* of time which begins at 12:00:00
> and includes 12:00:01 through 12:00:59 constitutes the *first*
> minute of Wednesday. During that entire time, a clock that only
> shows minutes will read 12:00, leading to the conclusion that
> (for times, at least) the convention is that the first minute of
> an hour (as a duration, not a boundary) is labeled 00.
>
> -jn-
What I'd intend to do was show (but that you've done better ;-) that given
the span of time:
Midnight to (Midnight + iota)
for any arbitrarily small iota the period belongs to the day following
midnight, therefore suggesting that the moment of midnight also belongs to
the following day.
But you're absolutely right, someone could reverse my argument:
(Midnight - iota) to Midnight
Then argue any other case (following, preceding, neither, both, contextual)
However, it just seems more right to me that
12:00:00.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001
which is certainly in the following day be associated with 12:00:00 rather
than 11:59:59.999...
Neither has the unfortunate side effect that it makes time discontinuous.
Both or contextual makes the moment of midnight nondeterministic.
I'm still voting for the following day! ;-)
Ken.
PS: I still round to the next even place, although I admit very seldom these
days.
