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Quick question: What years consist of the 21st century? (1 Viewer)

NickSo

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Im writing a paper, and I was wondering what year is the 21st century? is it 2000-2099? And the 20th would be 1900-1999 is this correct?

Thanks
 

ChrisMatson

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There was no year 0 (zero), so each centuries begin with 1.
00:00:00 on 01 January 2001 through 23:59:59 on 31 December 2100 would be your answer.
 

NickSo

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Ah, okay, so we would be currently in the 20th century...
 

ChrisMatson

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No. We are in the 21st. 1-100 was the first century, 1901-2000 was the 20th and 2001-2100 is the 21st.

It is similar to thinking of your age. If you are "10 years-old," you are currently in your 11th year:
0-1= first year
1-2= 2nd
2-3= 3rd
3-4= 4th
4-5= 5th
5-6= 6th
6-7= 7th
7-8= 8th
8-9= 9th
9-10= 10th
now= 11th

Did that make any sense?
 

Keith Mickunas

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No, we're in the 21st century. 1 to 100 was the first century. The second began with 101 ending in 200. So you go by the ending year. 1901 to 2000 would therefore be the 20th century. Does that clear it up?
 

Ken Chan

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Just like 1582 only had 355 days, I would suggest that the 20th century only had 99 years. The third millenium, the 21st century, and the decade after the Nineties -- decades, centuries, and millenia should coincide, shouldn't they? -- all started on January 1, 2000. I remember the fireworks :)

I know this rankles some purists, and their argument is certainly logical. I'm just trying to give them a logical way to accept things as they are :)

Nick, in your paper you might mention this is a point of some contention.

//Ken
 

Bryan X

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decades, centuries, and millenia should coincide, shouldn't they? -- all started on January 1, 2000. I remember the fireworks
Just because someone calls a dog a duck doesn't make it a duck.

The 21st century did not start until January 1, 2001. There's no reason to pretend it didn't just to please the ignorant masses. That would be like us accepting Pan&Scan just because the mass of J6Ps prefer it over OAR. Wouldn't it just be easier to go along with J6P? Yeah, but we'd rather educate them as to what is correct.

I don't mean to sound bitchy, but changing facts like this just because it may be 'easier' really gets under my skin. :)
 

Henry Gale

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That would be like us accepting Pan&Scan...
All right Bryan! A home theater analogy!

Of course you're correct, but that "2" and all the zeros just made most peoples brains shut down.

I remember being on the streets of downtown Austin that night, amazed that tens of thousands of people knew the lyrics to, "The Road Goes On Forever." One year later ( the real new century and milleneum) did not draw a a fraction of the crowd.
 

Cees Alons

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Just like 1582 only had 355 days
To put it more correctly: the period that "they" tagged the year as '1532' lasted for 355 days.
But the 1532nd year after the point in time they designated as the birth of Christ lasted exactly as many days (or seconds) as the 1531st and the 1533rd.

Oh, and why shouldn't people be allowed to make a lot of noise when the century is spelled with a 2 (more precise: a 20) for the first time? Has not necessarily anything to do with what century it is (since whenever), doesn't it?


Cees
 

NickSo

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Oh, the paper isnt about time, i just had to describe a period of time, and i just gone blank as to what century we were in :p)
 

Ken Chan

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But the 1532nd year after the point in time they designated as the birth of Christ lasted exactly as many days (or seconds) as the 1531st and the 1533rd.
First, there are leap seconds, so while that statement may be true in particular, it is not always true generally. Second, that "year" period you mention is some tiny bit under 365.25 days, and no one really keeps tracks of years that way. We use whole days, adding one periodically, so that the years are in line with the days. The year starts when the day starts. The decade starts when the year starts. The century should start when the decade starts. Sure, that's not how we've done it in the past, but in the past, the calendar was wacky. Why not fix it?

//Ken
 

Jerry F

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What do you call the very first year on our calendar? I'm talking Jan 1, 0000 - Dec 31, 0000. Year one, right? It IS a year and it's the first year. Yet, it's 0. So, how can 01 be the first year? There would be a gap of a year at the beginning.
 

Joseph DeMartino

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I'm talking Jan 1, 0000 - Dec 31, 0000.
There is no such year on our calendar, which is the point.

Who the hell counts anything starting with "zero". When you were a kid did someone teach you to count your toes by starting with "zero" and ending at "nine"? Didn't think so. :)

The dividing line between B.C. and A.D. (or B.C.E. - Before the Common Era - and C.E/) is a point, not a year. December 31st of the year 1 B.C. gave way to January 1st 1 A.D. at 1 second past midnight. There is no "year zero" in the common western calendar.

Thus, as noted above, the first century (either B.C.E. or C.E.) runs from 1 to 100, with the second century beginning in the year 101. Similarly the 1st decade of the 20th century ran from 1901 to 1910, with the second decade beginning in 1911, not 1910. The "zero year" is the last year of a decade, century or millenium, not the first year of the following one.

Regards,

Joe
 

Kevin P

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Well 2000 years ago people didn't think in terms of computers, and "zero" wasn't used in counting. When you count things, whether it's apples, coins, years, or centuries, you start at 1.

So, year 1 was the start of the 1st century, and the 1st millennium. A century is 100 years, so 100 + 1 = 101, the start of the 2nd century. Extrapolate this out 19 more centuries, and you have the year 2001, the start of the 21st century, and the 3rd millennium.

Age is one of the few things that is counted starting at zero, so when you're born you're zero years old (but you're living the first year of your life). After that first year is over, you're 1, and you're starting the 2nd year of your life... clear as mud? :)

KJP
 

BrianW

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Age is one of the few things that is counted starting at zero,
Mileage is another. I think that people tend to regard calendars in the same capacity as they do odometers. But when your car's odometer rolls over to 2000, it's reached the end of its 2000th mile. However, when we roll our calendars over to the year 2000 we've reached only the beginning of the 2000th year.

OT: Some cultures don't start counting their age from zero, they start from one. Or, to be more precise, they indicate what year they are in when asked their age, so a four-month old baby will be said to be in his first year, or one year old.
 

Mike Broadman

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We don't even count age by zero. An infant is living his first year, not his zeroth year. As BrianW pointed out, how we label our age is simply a matter of semantic- we go by how many years we've completed. But we never lived a "zeroth" year.
 

Bryan X

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The year starts when the day starts. The decade starts when the year starts. The century should start when the decade starts.
Ken, The century DOES start when the decade starts. Not to open up a can of worms but just as Jan 1, 2001 was the first day of the new century, it was ALSO the first day of the new decade. The prior decade ran from Jan 1, 1991 to Dec 31, 2000. Now does it all make sense to you? Jan 1, 2001 was the first day of the year, decade, century, and millenium.
 

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