the great number year debate

[isfet]

listening to the radio this morning, someone made a comment that reminded me of something my mom always used to say.  it basically went:

"2010 is not the start of the next decade, just like how 2000 wasn't the start of the new millennium." 

now, the argument is that "hurr there's no year zero," which...i guess is technically correct, but it's confusing to me.  if we are to assume time is linear, and that things start at some point, then it's safe to assume it starts on, at the very least, Day 1, not year 1.  we don't say that newborn babies don't exist until they're a year old, correct?  so why is this different with years?

[dmauro]

It's a stupid point because the popular opinion is that the decade starts on the ten. So you've got technically correct and then what everyone thinks is correct. And this is the sort of thing in which general opinion seems more important than the "truth" of the matter.

And usually in math/computer/base 10 stuff things start with 0 and end in 9 anyways. If there was no year zero, then we should pretend there was.

[FortNinety]

I will admit; when K Thor emailed me a few weeks back requesting top ten lists covering the decade, I made note of how "hey, doesn't the decade technically start in the year 2011, sorta like how the new millennium actually began with..." and so forth. And was immediately shot down/corrected. I felt pretty stupid!

[loopback]

Here's how I look at it:

Do you think 1990 is a part of "the Eighties"?

Do you think 1980 is a part of "The Seventies"?

Also, hey, calendars don't have an objective truth. they're a construction.

[Fitz]

For whatever reason we popularly count decades from 0 to 9. Basically the emphasis is upon annual notation that does not effect the second place in the year number.  Once the second place is effected, blamo, new decade.

[isfet]

i guess, essentially, i still can't quite wrap my head around why 2000 wouldn't be a "new" century (as in the 21st).  at the very least, it would be within that first year of the new century, right? 

the 2010 business is equally baffling to me.  it's been 10 years since 2000, so....now about six days after a decade.

it's all semantics, but i guess i was wondering if i was missing some kind of bigger picture that other people were clued into.

[loopback]

Isfet, think of it this way:  This is all made up stuff, and the 'decade' construct (a 10 year block) has nothing to do with either the 'century' or 'millenium' constructions. so just because a decade's last year ends in 9, doesn't mean that a century or a millenium ends on a 9 either.

That said, if we project forward a couple hundred years and pretend everything else is the same (first, assume a spherical cow of uniform density ...), I bet people do start considering 2000 as the start of the 21st century, since another way centuries often get talked about are 'the 1800s' or 'the 1400s'.

[dmauro]

i guess, essentially, i still can't quite wrap my head around why 2000 wouldn't be a "new" century (as in the 21st).  at the very least, it would be within that first year of the new century, right?

No that's the whole point of the argument is that 2000 is NOT the first year. If you go back 2000 years, you'd be back at year 0, but there is no year 0, so instead the first AC millennium starts at year 1, which means the third millennium can't start until 2001.

But no one gives a shit because that was 2000 years ago so who gives a damn, let's pretend that 1BC is the equivalent of 0AC and we're all set.