What is military time?

military time is a way of telling time that is widely used in the military, transportation and emergency services, as well as by medical professionals. It is also commonly used by many businesses and organizations around the world.

Military time runs on a 24-hour clock basis, meaning the day will begin at 00:00 and end at 23:59. It's a great way to simplify communication, especially when dealing with international or remote teams. For instance, using military time means that everyone around the world can understand what time it is regardless of their local time zone or daylight savings adjustments. For example, 0900 in military time can be understood by anyone as "nine o'clock", no matter where you are in the world.

Rather than using a.m. and p.m as we would for traditional 12-hour clocks, military time instead uses four numbers to identify a specific hour within each day; the first two digits indicating the hour and the last two denoting minutes (e.g., 0800 would be 8 a.m., while 1700 would be 5 p.m.). To save even more time, if no minutes are specified with a four-digit number referring to an hour on the clock our brains should assume we are referring to "on-the-hour". So 0100 could be intended to mean 1:00 am or 1:00 pm - context clues would likely decide which one is intended (unless 10pm is mentioned in prior discussion).

Another element of military time that sets it apart from traditional 12-hour clocks is how it displays midnight and noon—these times are not written as 12:00am or 12:00pm but simply 0000 hours and 1200 hours respectively, reflecting how there are technically no "AM" or "PM" in 24-hour format; any hour before 1200 starts over with 0000 while any hour after begins with 1300 increasing incrementally through 2359 following the same pattern until it starts again at 0000 hours for that day's midnight reading. This structure helps reduce confusion when communicating over long distances or abroad where there may be varying interpretations of what constitutes "noon" or "midnight" given local daylight savings and non-uniformed thresholds for these two times (for instance 2pm in some countries may actually translate as 1415 in others). This system has been implemented formally by nations such as NATO in order to ensure continuity when ordering operations between countries without risk of misinterpretation due to different temporal regulations like those mentioned above which could cause confusion during cross-border operations if left up to local interpretation only (NATO UTC Standard Time being used today).

Overall, understanding military time can help you avoid miscommunications due to lack of consistent international standards; its use has practically become mandatory among many global entities such as airlines and emergency services personnel. Knowing how to read this type of clock may also prove useful both professionally and personally, allowing you determine precise timings quickly while avoiding confusion created by traditions 12 hour standard oscillations between AM/PM across each day