School gates open at half three in most of the country, and the pavement outside fills up in the ten minutes before. Getting there without either sprinting or standing about for twenty minutes is a matter of leaving at the right moment. This page counts down to 4:01 pm exactly, second by second.
The count makes no sound and asks for no attention while it runs. It is a number, not an alarm, and nothing goes off when it reaches zero. Leaving the page open in a background tab is perfectly fine — it will carry on counting towards 4:01 pm whether or not anyone is watching it.
Matching what somebody said against what somebody wrote is easier with all three versions to hand: 4:01 pm for everyday reading, 16:01 for anything printed in railway style, and one minutes past four in the afternoon for whatever was actually spoken down the phone. All three describe precisely the same point in the day, and having them side by side saves a good deal of squinting at a timetable.
Common questions
Will this alert me when the time arrives?
No. It is a live number rather than an alarm — nothing rings, buzzes or notifies you at zero. If you need to be interrupted at 4:01 pm, set an alarm as well and treat this page as the running total.
Is it affected by the clocks changing?
Only in the sense that your device is. When the change between GMT and BST happens at the end of March and October, the device adjusts and the countdown follows it without anything to do here.
What is 16:01 in the 12-hour clock?
That is 4:01 pm, or one minutes past four in the afternoon if you are saying it aloud. From 13:00 onwards, subtracting twelve gives the pm figure — the same moment written three different ways.
Does the number update by itself?
Yes. It recalculates every second from your device's clock, so there is nothing to refresh or restart. Whatever is on screen is the current gap to the target time, not a figure worked out when the page first loaded.
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