Comments on: Year zero

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 23 Aug 2004 14:45:57 +0000

Aeon has hit it right on the head, and I think Reuben and several others are missing the most fundamental mathematical point. Calendars are a system of ordinal numbers. That is: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. Zero doesn’t exist in ordinal counting. The year 2000 is called 2000 because its the 2000th year since a specified reference point. Every calendar ever created works this way. Whether it’s counting the twelfth year of the reign of Ragnar the Terrible or the Year of Our Lord 2000, it’s still ordinal counting, so you can’t have a year zero even if you really, really, really want one. Its simply the nature of how calendars work. No amount of convention, preference, attitude or even agreement can alter the purely mathematical fact that there is no such thing as zero in an ordinal number system. You can no more refer to a “zeroeth” year than you can sensibly answer the questions who was the “zeroeth” President or which was the “zeroeth” State admitted to the Union?

By: Joseph Briggs

Joseph Briggs — Mon, 23 Aug 2004 13:38:14 +0000

Way late (in internet time; I should visit this site more often) but I just have to go on record here to agree with aeon and especially dave f. (and the surprisingly few others here who managed to state the premise clearly): This is the stupidest false dilemma ever. Counting is not a difficult concept to grasp. Let’s start: I have 1 year, now I have 2 years… and so on. I could go on about the “common sense” purpose of calendar systems as justification as to why there should be no year zero but like I said, it’s a dumb argument. This is a great exercise in complicating a simple idea and calling it esoteric. The mention of array elements starting with 0 is inappropriate. Arrays in programming are addressing data in memory.

By: cafl

cafl — Sat, 21 Aug 2004 20:32:34 +0000

“In any case, this isn’t about when the Arabic “zero” entered European mathematics, it’s about the difference between numbers used arithmetically and numbers used to count. Count the apples – 1,2,3 -the first one, the second one, etc. There’s no zeroth apple.” Try that when referencing array elements in a C program and you’ll reference past the end of the array! The crackers will love you for it, however.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 21 Aug 2004 03:28:20 +0000

John, your argument seems to miss the point that “anno domini” and “common era” actually mean something. “A.D. 0” or “0 C.E.” would refer to a time before the year Christ was born (at least for purposes of the calendar system)—a time that wasn’t actually the “year of our Lord” or the “common era” at all.

By: Dave F

Dave F — Sat, 21 Aug 2004 01:25:35 +0000

This is a ridiculous argument. Common sense once told everyone the world was flat. But it isn’t. People (mainly media marketing people, decided to mark the year that started with a nice round number, 2000, as the start of a millennium or “the millennium”—and distinguishing between the two terms on the basis of whether a definite or indefinite article is used betrays a pedantry far more ludicrous than that of which those who can count are accused. As a sub-editor I am often accused of pedantry, but where would academics be if the newspapers sacrificed numerical accuracy about, ooh, say, body counts, voting figures (think Bush/Gore, etc, in favour of feel-good expediency and lots of ad money. Real newspapers, anyway. That 2+2=4 is not a pedantic assertion. It is just true. The dismal performance of British school pupils in the “boring” subject of mathematics has been amply demonstrated by numerous learned fools on this thread.

By: Antoni Jaume

Antoni Jaume — Sat, 21 Aug 2004 01:03:34 +0000

// [...]In 2000, if we were not in the new millennium, then we must have been in the last decade of the last century of the previous millennium. Yet as everyone knows, the 1990s ended January 1st, 2000 // The 90s ended the 31 of December 1999, the ninth decade of the XX century ended on 31 December 2000 . Your everyone is what? a Bush voter? Following that kind reasoning we are in the 20 century. DSW

By: agm

agm — Sat, 21 Aug 2004 00:54:09 +0000

“… turning 20 years old would be…” Really, who celebrates 20? It’s 21 that matters (unless you’re in a land where 18 is the age that matters). Thus I say the issue is settled: it must be that the new era is the year ending in a one! Pedantry is thus ended: each person has their own year 21, with the zeroth year being only nine months long, and dating becomes a personal issue =). Now that’s an idea, ~seven billion dating systems and more coming every year.

By: MaryGarth

MaryGarth — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 23:05:13 +0000

“My daughter was born at dawn on 01-01-01”— A fine birthday! My grandmother’s birthday was the previous 01-01-01, and she always said she was born on the first day of the first month of the first year…

By: blue

blue — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 22:33:21 +0000

Calendar years are a bit like miles and birthdays. 2000 is the natural turning point, like reaching 20,000 miles on the odometer or turning 20 years old would be (and said rollover points indicate the completion, not the beginning, of mile 20,000/one’s 20th year). In 2000, if we were not in the new millennium, then we must have been in the last decade of the last century of the previous millennium. Yet as everyone knows, the 1990s ended January 1st, 2000. That shouldn’t have stopped anyone, however, from celebrating the Eve before 2001 like it was 1999.

By: Jonathan Edelstein

Jonathan Edelstein — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 21:05:41 +0000

Actually, it’s more likely JEWISH academics who will be found using CE rather than AD. AD meaning “Year of OUR Lord”, and the Jew is not included in the Us in question. I dunno. I always use AD - I just think of it as “year of their Lord.”

By: Dick Thompson

Dick Thompson — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 20:41:39 +0000

They still use Roman Numerals. If you mean to do arithmetic with, there were still some people using them for that in the 16th century. Just like people who insist on a century starting in an 00 year, they refused to give up their old ways for better ones.

By: aeon skoble

aeon skoble — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 20:28:16 +0000

Were they still using Roman numerals in 1200? I’m really asking: I have no idea when they stopped using Roman numerals. In any case, though, the real point is that they had the idea of tens, hundreds, and thousands of things. The first thousand years was the first millennium, and so the second one would be the second thousand years. Obviously, we can designate any year as the beginning of some thousand-year period – how about right now? – but when people use the definite article, they’re referring not just to a span of a thousand years, but something more specific. That’s why the second millenium included 2000.

By: Omada

Omada — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 20:19:08 +0000

If Europeans had no concept of zero in 1200, how did they write “1200”? MCC, obviously. Not much of a New Roman, are you?

By: aeon skoble

aeon skoble — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 19:15:36 +0000

If Europeans had no concept of zero in 1200, how did they write “1200”? In any case, this isn’t about when the Arabic “zero” entered European mathematics, it’s about the difference between numbers used arithmetically and numbers used to count. Count the apples – 1,2,3 the first one, the second one, etc. There’s no zeroth apple. Same thing with kids – you have a “first kid” and a “second kid,” but not a zeroth kid. Counting starts with the first thing. That’s not something generally unknown, which is why it’s baffling that people get this issue wrong. The names of our years are countingnames.

By: aphrael

aphrael — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 18:43:53 +0000

Stentor – that’s precisely the point that Hobsbawm is making when he claims January 1, 1992, as the start of the 21st century. In that view, the 20th century started on July 28, 1914, and encompassed the two world wars and the struggle between capitalism and communism; once the Soviet Union was legitimately dead, we were in a distinctly different historical era.

To the extent that the “war on terror” is the defining issue of our time, though, it is unclear whether the decade between the end of the cold war and the start of the war on terror is better treaded as a coda to the former or a prelud to the latter.