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

Eric_L

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I've not read any posts here because I'm in a hurry. Sorry if this is a repeat.

I understand that the 'first' year of a decade/century/millenia starts after the '1' - since the first year isn't over until then.

However I think there is a mistake there.

When is your first year of life - before or after your first birthday?

Therefore, when is the first year of a decade?
 

John Robert

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Brett:

I have several suggestions:

The Aughts

The Os

The Nils

The Zeros

The Double Os

The Decade after the Nineties

The Wonder Years


Trademarks all pending...
 

Robert_Z

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As noted above, there is no "year zero". Never was, never will be.
So if the first year of the first century did not count, wouldn't the same hold true for every succeeding century? What makes the first year of the first century different from the first year of all the other centuries? Every century has 100 years in it, and has a year zero. So if the first year of the first century did not count, shouldn't that trickle down every century, meaning we should have gone from Dec 31, 1999, to Jan 1, 2001? After all, year 2000 IS year 0 of the 20th century, just fancily decorated with a 200 in front of it, but a year 0 nonetheless.
 

BrianW

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So if the first year of the first century did not count, wouldn't the same hold true for every succeeding century? What makes the first year of the first century different from the first year of all the other centuries? Every century has 100 years in it, and has a year zero. So if the first year of the first century did not count, shouldn't that trickle down every century, meaning we should have gone from Dec 31, 1999, to Jan 1, 2001?
I think you misunderstand. Every century is the same, including the first century. By "year zero", we're not referring to the year in every century that ends in "00". Rather, we are refering to the year before the first year of the modern calendar, which would actually be year 1, B.C. This would make the first year number zero, the second year number one, the third year number two, and so on, until the hundredth year number 99. Counting in this fashion would allow the centuries to begin in years ending in "00". But since we begin counting at number one ("one" is usually the first one, right?), then years ending in "00" are then the last years of the century, and years ending in "01" are the first years of the century. Either way you do it, all the centuries are the same, have the same number of years in them, and in neither case is there anything "special" about the first century.
 

Malcolm R

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No, Year 2000 was the 100th year of the 20th century. Year 2001 was the first year of the 21st century.
 

Robert_Z

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I don't remember reading this in any previous posts, but this topic reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where Newman throws his "Celebrate the Millenium with Newmanium" party.
 

Bryan X

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I think all this explanation of year 0 is just muddying the explanation. Think of it like this.

Imagine *BOOM*, the big bang. What do you call the first 365 days? Year 1, of course. It's the first year, not year 0. So, correctly, the first century is years 1 through 100, 2nd century is years 101 through 200, all the way to our 20th century which ran years 1901 through 2000.

Year 0 makes no sense. We don't have a year 0 in our age, so why should our calendar in the passage of years. Some people think we count our age differently than the calendar years but this is not true.

Example:

You are born. The first 365 days of your life are your first year. You don't call that your 0th year. Some people get confused on this because you say you are 1 year old AFTER your 1st year is completed. But that's because when someone asks you how old you are they are asking "how many years have you COMPLETED?" NOT "what year of your life are you IN?". When you say you are 1 year old, the meaning is "I have completed 1 full year of life, and am in my 2nd year."

When people ask "What year is it?" they are asking something ENTIRELY DIFFERENT. They aren't asking "How many years has our calendar COMPLETED?" but are instead asking "What year are we IN?"

Assume you were born at the big bang. 500 days later, if some one asked: "What year is it?", the answer is 2. "How old are you?", the answer is 1. This makes people think we count the calendar different from our age. But that is not the case, because the questions are NOT asking the same thing.
 

Ken Chan

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They aren't asking "How many years has our calendar COMPLETED?" but are instead asking "What year are we IN?"
But if you started the calendar at 0, those two questions would yield the same answer. Wouldn't that be better, having "How old is the universe?" and "What year is it?" be the same? Starting the calendar at 1 makes things more complicated, not less.

Year 0 makes plenty of sense. We measure almost everything from zero: distance, speed, weights, volumes, age, and of course plain old time. The 100-meter dash, which is measured from zero to 100 meters, takes about 10 seconds, which is also measured from zero. The stopwatch doesn't start at "second 1" because having a zero at the top of the dial would "make no sense".

We do have a year 0 in our age. If you're less than a year old, your age would be something like: 0 years, 8 months; or 0 years, 0 months, 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 5 seconds. And yes, that's your first year, but 1st is the first ordinal number, while 0 is the first cardinal number, and they're different. In fact, here's a fantastic essay that's right on point, puts it better than I would, and captures the tone of this thread well: http://www.friesian.com/century.htm

//Ken
 

Cees Alons

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Excellent article.

BTW, I noticed that the "zero-est" floor in warehouses, etc., which is called "GL" or "RdC" or "BG" in Europe (and as far as I know in the US too), making the "first" floor being 1, is actually denoted "1" in Japan (so if you want to go 1 storey high, you have to press "2" in a Japanese elevator).

Of course, one could argue that on the ground level the "first" floor is to be found. (Not in Dutch: our word for storey - verdieping - can only mean a higher or lower floor than the ground level.)


Cees
 

Bryan X

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Year 0 makes plenty of sense. We measure almost everything from zero: distance, speed, weights, volumes, age, and of course plain old time. The 100-meter dash, which is measured from zero to 100 meters, takes about 10 seconds, which is also measured from zero. The stopwatch doesn't start at "second 1" because having a zero at the top of the dial would "make no sense".
But we DO measure the years EXACTLY the same as your examples. Look at your 100 meter dash example. Imagine a length of 100 meters. What would you call the distance from the starting point through meter 1? You would call it the FIRST meter, not the 0th. The same with years. There is no 0 meter in 100 meters. There's a 1st, 2nd, 3rd... all the way to 100th meter. Yes there is a starting point of 0 but it is not a meter it is merely a point idicating the beginning. But you don't count the 100 meters 0, 1, 2, 3... do you? You count them 1, 2, 3, 4... Same with years. Jan 1 of the 1st year is the starting point 0, and we call the first year "year 1" just like the starting point of 100 meters is 0 and we call the first meter "meter 1".

On your stopwatch example, from the moment you press start until it hits 1 second you call that the first second, not the 0th. Do you see that our calendar is no different?

What you are proposing with a year 0 is actually CONTRARY to how we count everything else.
 

Marvin

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You know, everyone was so worried about the y2k bug, but that's nothing compared to the y10k bug.... how are we going to handle a 5 digit year...
It must have been even worse back when the years switched from BC to AD and the year numbers started going up rather than down. How did people cope with the y1 bug?
 

Cees Alons

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But we DO measure the years EXACTLY the same as your examples.
Not really. Given the fact that Christ was not (or imagined to be) born exactly between two years, how do you call the year in which He was born ("born" according to the year naming system, not trying to figure out when it really happened)?
Personally, I would rather call it 0 BC = 0 AD than 1 AD (would sound wrong for the period in that year before His birth) or 1 BC (wrong for the period after that event).

Anyway, we now certainly have a defective system, in which the year -1 (1 BC) precedes the year 1 (1 AD). There is no year 0!
Of course, we also wouldn't like to have two years called 0 (0 BC and 0 AD), which could be seen as the equivalent of the 1-complement/2-complement problem.

The very best suggestion, given our current knowledge, would be to accept a +0 (and refuse a -0), so the first century would run from 0 AD to 99 AD. The year 0 AD, Anno Domini = "the year of the Lord" (being the year designated as the year Christ was born) would be preceded by the year 1 BC. The next year would be called 1 AD (the first year after the year of the Lord). This would leave our integer numbering system intact: "BC" would be the true equivalent of "minus" or "negative".
(See also my floor numbering example above.)

Every century (especially the first one, called Century 0) would begin with a special "beginning of a new period" year.

Cees


PS:
You think that helped us? Ha. Given the designated year of Christ's birth, adopting this would mean we now live in the year 2002 AD. The people celebrating at our current Jan, 1st, 2001 were right.
Or else we have to shift Christ's birth 1 year back in time (would probably even be more precise), but then we'll have to learn all our classic numbers - like the year of Caesar's death - anew.
C.
 

Bryan X

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Given the fact that Christ was not (or imagined to be) born exactly between two years
When Christ was born has absolutely nothing to do with how we count.

You say you want a century to be from 0 to 99. How about that 100 meter example. Do you want it to be 0 to 99 too? NO. What sense would that make. You count the meters from 1 to 100 not 0 to 99. So why make years different?

You keep missing the fact that 0 IS the starting point for our years. 0 corresponds to Jan 1, 1 AD. The 1 AD just refers to the fact that it is the FIRST year. Then on Jan 1, 2 AD we START the second year. Jan 1, 2 AD tells us we are at the beginning of the 2nd year. It makes sense how it is.
 

Cees Alons

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Brian,

It depends of whether you want to be "0" a point in time or a year. Whether or not you just want to measure "time elapsed" (like meters distance) or "years" (like apples). If you want to name the objects in case (e.g. years and centuries), it's more like the latter.

When you see the integer numbers in a row, there's a "0".
Compare the floors of a warehouse example. There is a "floor 0", whatever it is called.


Oh, and
When Christ was born has absolutely nothing to do with how we count.
The moment in time chosen is a fiction, but it does matter: it establishes our reference, and thus the value of each number. The years 2000 (or 2001) would not have attracted the same interested had they been, say, 7467 and 7468. It has everything to do with how we count, exactly.

Cees
 

Bryan X

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Whether or not you just want to measure "time elapsed" (like meters distance) or "years" (like apples). If you want to name the objects in case (e.g. years and centuries), it's more like the latter.
Again, no difference in how we count apples and years. You don't call the first apple 0 do you? So why call the first year 0?

You say you want to name centuries and years like you count apples. You obviously don't realize it but you just agreed with me. 100 years in a century. If I told you to give me the equivalent apples, how many would you give me? 100! 1 - 100! You wouldn't show me the 100 apples and start counting them 0, 1, 2, ... Do you understand yet?
 

Cees Alons

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You still don't see the difference between naming a year and measuring a distance (in time).
There isn't a floor 0. Imagine a simple ten story building, no basement. The bottom floor is the 1st floor or ground floor. The next floor up is 2nd floor even if the 1st is called ground.
In Europe 'your' second floor is called "floor 1" (and has a "1" attached to the button in the elevator, likewise the first basement floor has "-1"). Isn't it like that in the US? Are you numbering the floors like they do in Japan?

You can name a year as an ordinal, like counting, or you can name it after the (full) time elapsed since the reference point. As I explained, I would prefer the latter (although that's not how it is now).


In your example, I would count 100 apples, you're slightly insulting here, but I would label the first one "0".


Cees
 

Bryan X

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but I would label the first one "0".
Must be cultural differences, because in the U.S. we would not call the first apple, apple 0.

If that is how you count in the Netherlands then I can see how you wouldn't like there being no year 0. I hope you can understand why to me a year 0 makes no sense since in our country the 'first apple' is number 1.

I also apologize if my post was insulting. Not intended to be. I just get carried away in a good debate. :)
 

Cees Alons

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Brian,

Your (slight) "insult" lies in the "don't you understand yet" attitude (and words), where it's merely a matter of different opinions. Assume, please, that I do "get" what you're saying. Of course I know that you understand me as well. :)

In the case of the apples, they wouldn't get labeled, of course. It's hardly practical, especially because they can easily change positions.
In the case of years and several other things we do. Our (= in Europe) ground floors are labeled "GF" or something like that, the next one "1", then "2", etc. They're named after their ordinal distance from the ground level. Apparently it's not done that way in the US, if you say so.

This is not about who's right, it shows however that it's very reasonable as well and certainly thinkable to do it differently.

So my point here is: it's perfectly right to name years after their order, but it's perfectly reasonable as well to name them after the periods elapsed.

So the next question would be: and what is more practical? Given several considerations, my choice would be as I said before.

Cees



PS
Here's quote from the above refered article on the Friesian site:
 

Bryan X

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So my point here is: it's perfectly right to name years after their order, but it's perfectly reasonable as well to name them after the periods elapsed.
Yes, I understand that one way isn't inherently better than the other. But as I said in one of my early posts, I'm not here to argue what method is better. Just to answer to question asked based on what numbering system we do use.

Part of the problem is that this post has gotten off track of the original question and into a more philosophical question. The original question asked what years fall in the 20th century. There is a correct answer to that question because we have a known system for counting the years whether we like it or not. Just as I need to call an apple an apple regardless if I think it should be called an orange. That doesn't mean that apple is an inherently better or worse name, just that if I didn't go along with the current naming convention chaos would ensue.

By the way, since we brought up floors of a building, did you know that in the U.S. you generally (perhaps always, but I can't say since I've not been in them all) will not find a floor 13. The floors go straight from 12 to 14.
 

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