Subject:
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Re: No "year zero", but if there was, we STILL just started new millenia!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 2 Jan 2001 17:44:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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740 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Frank Filz writes:
> Franklin W. Cain wrote:
> > There was *not* a "year zero". The year after "1 BC" was the year "AD 1".
>
> You're missing my point. There wasn't a year 1 AD either. There is a
> year which we now call 1 AD. My point is that the relevance of when the
> bleep the calendar started is about zero. Therefore I find more
> relevance in the last digits turning to zeros.
>
> I used to take the anal view that since there isn't a year 0, that the
> new millenium starts in 2001, but as I saw more and more discussion, I
> came to feel that it just plain makes more sense to think of 2000/01/01
> as the start of the new millenium.
If that's the case, my computer that reads 2001 is wrong. If there was no
year 1, then how is there a year 2001?
Any numbering system for years starts at an arbitrary date - you are correct
that there wasn't a year 1 in the sense that the people living then called
it such. But in the numbering system currently is use, there are no ifs,
ands, or buts about it: there ain't a year zero, and 2001 is the start of
the 3rd millenia A.D.
Now, if you want to make up a new system that renumbers 1 AD as 0 AD (which
would make 1 A.D. one year after the birth of Christ, though I seem to
recall that 1 A.D. refers to Christ being circumcised not born), then yes,
2000 AD was the start of the third millenium. But that means it is now 2000
A.D., not 2001 A.D., which means we STILL just entered the 3rd millenia A.D!
I really don't see the point of making up a numbering system and then
ignoring it, myself. It was amusing to note that the Los Angeles Times
editorial page celebrated the start of the 21st century in 2000, but
celebrated the start of the 20th century in 1901. A 99 year century? :-)
Bruce
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: there ain't no such thing as "year zero"...
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| (...) You're missing my point. There wasn't a year 1 AD either. There is a year which we now call 1 AD. My point is that the relevance of when the bleep the calendar started is about zero. Therefore I find more relevance in the last digits turning (...) (23 years ago, 2-Jan-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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