Is 12 am before 12 pm?

Answer 1

There is no such thing as 12 AM or 12 PM.

Those are commonly used improper terms.

The abbreviations AM and PM stand for Ante Meridiem and Post Meridiem, respectively. The terms ante and post mean before and after. The term meridiem refers to when the sun is at the middle of its arc across the sky.

Nominally the sun is at its meridiem at noon. Since it is *at* its meridiem this is neither before nor after the meridiem. It *is* the meridiem.

Likewise, midnight is neither 12 AM nor 12 PM. It is equally far from both. It is simply 12 midnight.

The military clock is better than the civilian clock for many reasons. One is that eliminates the complexity of specifically accounting for whether a time is before of after midnight. On the military clock noon is read as 1200 hours, and midnight is read as 2400 hours.

Answer 2

Yes, 12 am occurs before 12 pm. 12 am is midnight, the start of the day, while 12 pm is noon, the middle of the day.