This discussion made me think of an interesting web site I found a while ago, here is the link: http://www.tondering.dk/claus/cal/calendar24.html - it includes among other things, how calendars are related to astronomy. It has a specific section regarding counting years and the year zero: http://www.tondering.dk/claus/cal/node3.html#SECTION003130000000000000000 Bruce A. James Programmer/Analyst BruceJ@eXegeSys.com http://www.eXegeSys.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----Original Message----- From: Brent Watson [mailto:brentjwatson@yahoo.com] Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2003 5:12 PM To: Astronomy in Utah Subject: RE: [Utah-astronomy] SLAS meeting?
Nice try, Joe ;>) If you are counting dollars, is the first one the zeroth one? Do you have to have 11 dollars to have ten? Even our society starts counting with one.
Your example of three...two...one...liftoff launches the rocket at the beginning of the first second, not the zeroth second. Elsewise, you would have to say three...two...one...zero...liftoff.
"A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." I remain unconvinced, but almost hate to start this conversation. Talk about subject creep!
Brent --- Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> wrote:
Re this comment:
Also, the year 0 did not exist.
The subject of a 0 date is an interesting one. I contend there WAS a year 0, it just doesn't show up easily. After all, the ancients didn't use a designation 3 BC yet we accept that the year 3 BC existed. For my argument on the subject, here's an article I wrote in 1998 (which nobody but me took seriously!) My approach gets around that endless source of confusion and debate, whether 2000 is the first year in the millennium, 1920 the first year of the '20s decade, etc.The dating system has some arbitrary aspects, and I say, let's take advantage of that and clear up the confusion. We invent a year 0 without damaging the calendar or previous dating schemes.
Best wishes, Joe
Forget experts -- millennium starts when we say it does
By Joe Bauman Deseret News science writer
A modest proposal by the Deseret News science writer: Let's MAKE the millennium line up with people's expectations so that it starts on Jan. 1, 2000. The countdowns going on now would culminate at an unambiguous time. No one could stick out a chin and say, "Put away that noisemaker, it's not really the turn of the millennium."Jan. 1, 2000, will be the start of the third millennium, if we say it is. After all, that's the date when everyone will celebrate the big numbering switch. That's when the most sparkly fireworks will rocket across the sky, when revelers will sing louder than ever, when the Y2K bug will byte. Still, purists insist that the millennium won't actually begin until the following year, on Jan. 1, 2001. What an unsatisfactory date with which to turn a chronological corner! 2001 wears the number one at the end, a numerical caboose. No, it won't do. We crave the smooth symmetry of a string of zeros. We want our millennial starting points to look as if we're getting a new deal, counting years from a time when something momentous happened. Like the Y2K bug, if nothing better. The problem is that when the Christian calendar was launched nobody thought about designating a year 0. In fact, the primitive mathematics of the day had no zero. Therefore, the first year in the Anno Domini scale, in the Year of Our Lord, was 1. Using that logic, the first decade ended Dec. 31, A.D. 10 and the second started on the first of January, A.D. 11. The second hundred years, then, started in 101, and so on ad nauseam, right up to the beginning of the third millennium on Jan. 1, 2001. As designated by the Venerable Bede, 1 B.C. was followed immediately by A.D. 1. There was no "0" in between. So the zero years end, not start, things. We can't fix the calendar by adding a separate zero year, unless we want to wreck the whole structure that was developed to date events before the birth of Jesus. We can't rewrite all history books to say Julius Caesar was assassinated in 43 B.C. instead of the 44 B.C. date everybody memorized in high school. Frankly, the present system does make sense. Even if our predecessors had known about zero, they should not have designated a separate year as zero. That's because B.C. means before Christ. The last year before Christ was 1 B.C. since it was one year before Christ was born. The next year the Anno Domini system begins. Anno Domini translates as "in the year of our lord," meaning the first year of Jesus' time on Earth. So logically, 1 B.C. is followed immediately by A.D. 1 -- that is, one year before Jesus is followed by the first year of his presence. However, this logic causes controversy about when decades, centuries and millennia begin. Is there a way to make the calendar live up to expectations so that the zero years marks the start of something new? Surprisingly, yes. All it takes is a mental adjustment, a change in the way we regard the calendar. After all, calendars are human inventions and we have the right to reconsider their use. Carry out a thought experiment. For a moment, think only in terms of the B.C. scale. The year 1 B.C. was one year before the birth of Jesus. So what year B.C. was it when he was born? None it all -- it was no longer before Jesus. It was 0 years before Christ. We can say, A.D. 1 is the same as 0 B.C. Thus, a zero year shows up, and we do need a zero. After all, the end of a scale is never "1". Look at a ruler: it doesn't have the "1" at the very end. You don't reach that point until you've moved an inch. When astronauts count down, it's not "three, two, liftoff!" The smoke and flames come at the zero point: "three, two, one, liftoff!" Assuming Anno Domini 1 coincides with 0 B.C., we may apply that principle to the present timeline. It's not a big jump to imagine that there was an "A.D. 0" year although nobody calls it that. It's a stealth designation. It coincided with the year 1 B.C. We would have two valid ways of referring to that year: the year 1 B.C. is also known as 0 A.D. Decades, etc., start with zero. A mental recalibration would encourage us to celebrate the turn of the millennium immediately after midnight on Jan. 1, 2000 -- which, our instincts tell us, will be the moment the grand change happens.
Joe Bauman science & military reporter Deseret News bau@desnews.com (801) 237-2169
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