Chronological Oddity to Hit Digital Clock

[tuvor]

Call it a coincidental sign of our digital times or a reason to stay up late and stare at the clock. Either way, early Wednesday morning the time and date will be 01-02-03-04-05-06.

At 1:02 a.m. and three seconds on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, it will be the first hour of the day, the second minute of the hour, the third second of that precious minute in the fourth month of the fifth year of ... uh oh. It's not really the sixth year.

It's actually 2006 — only in our shorthand is it '06.

"It just happens to be a chronological oddity," said Geoff Chester, spokesman for the U.S. Naval Observatory, an official world atomic clock timekeeper. "If you were to use the full year, that would screw things up completely. You do have to bend it a little if you want to make it work. That's what you call 'Finagle's Law of Best Fit'."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060404/ap_on_re_us/numbers_row

[ZombieNixon]

1. Umm...why do they feel the need to tell us this?

Unless you're one of the 33 percenters, I'm fairly sure you know it's 2006 and that they didn't have digital clocks in the year 6.

I mean, technically, if you want to use the age of the Earth, it's the year 4,300,000,006 or so...and humanity's year 3,000,006...and the sixes in those cases are very debatable. x(

[Oeditpus Rex]

2. And it'll last a *whole second!*

:bounce:

[u4ic]

3. May 4 for us Canucks

;-)

[Call Me Wesley]

4. Dang, Europe misses another miracle, I guess.

Here it'll be:

01-02-03-05-04-06.

Doesn't work. :cry:

[tuvor]

5. Patience, CMW.

As u4ic points out, some of us will have to wait until 4 May. :)

[Call Me Wesley]

6. Ooops, I didn't see this.

Of course, then it'll work for us. Leave no Canuck or European behind! Or at least, just a month or so. :)

[Deja Q]

7. Not newsworthy. 0006 happened once. Hiding the "20" cuts no ice.

Nyah nyah nyah-nyah-nyah! :rofl:

[Orsino]

8. It's the End Times, it is.

They'll probably break down DeLay's front door at exactly that instant.