Is it just me? Centuries not matching decades.. And no year 0.

The Mayans had it all worked out.

I think your confusion stems from the fact that there is no year zero, which makes total sense when you think of it.(Also it didn't end well when the Khmer Rouge had one, so probably just as well:D)
When you start to count anything you start at 1, not 0. Therefore the first item in the second group of 1000 items, be they years, bananas or notches on your bed post, starts at 1001, first item in the 3rd group of 1000 starts at 2001 and so on.

Deleted User wrote: »

We count our lives starting with 0.

Think of it like a football match (or any time-limited sporting event). An incident, such as a goal scored, after 20 seconds is said to have occurred in the 1st minute, not the zeroth.

So if your age is 33, then you are 33 years old but you're in your 34th year.

Since time measurement is arbitrary anyway, this is debateable.

The standard for date/time definition in data interchange in computers includes a year zero.

A year zero is in fact more logical since you're talking about counting of years. Counting always starts at zero (because you don't have 1 year until the end of the first year).

The calendar format that we use isn't actually a counter, but a reference. So today is not 30 days since the start of October, it is the 30th day of October. 30 days have not elapsed until midnight tonight.
This is the same basis on which people say that there is no "year zero" in the Gregorian calendar, because this is the 2013th year, not that 2013 years have elapsed.

In any case, this isn't even the 2013th year, as we haven't been using this calendar for 2012 years. Mistakes and errors have been made in translation, and since the actual length of time since the alleged birth of Christ is unknown, this year is effectively arbitrarily numbered 2013 from some unknown date in the past.

So the debate about whether a year 1 exists or not is moot since we arbitrarily decided that one year was 1582 and we've been referencing our dates from that point ever since.

In a logical brain it makes more sense that there would be a year zero. So don't feel bad about simply assuming the most obvious thing is the reality.

This is as annoying as trying to explain to people that an event like wrestlemania 5 has been 4 years since the original, not 5!

I remember trying to tell people on 1/1/00 that the new millenium was still a year away, but would they listen? Like fook they would :pac:

Deleted User wrote: »

Gotta say I'm a bit shocked that I didn't know this.. The naughties started on 01/01/2000 but this century and millennium started on 01/01/2001. And I always thought the calender went 1BC-0-1AD but that's wrong too. It seems BC and AD refer to an imaginary space in time since they fall onto each other. 1BC-1AD.

Feel like a tit telling an 11 year old student today that he was wrong for saying it.

Reminds me of the time that Dan Quayle corrected the 10 year old for spelling Potato wrong.......why its Potatoe, you silly.....

At least you didnt do it on national TV when running a vice presidential campaign.

Absoluvely wrote: »

That would only be the case if the calendar system we have referred to the current year as "the 2013th year" rather than "the year 2013", which it doesn't.

Technically it does, we've just removed the part which causes it to make sense.

The outdated "A.D." suffix for "Anno Domini" meaning, "In the year of our lord", makes it a bit clearer what the reference is.

"In the year of our lord, 2013", is fairly clearly saying, "The 2013th year"

The modern suffix is C.E., meaning "Common Era", which used in conjunction with the year, is clearly saying "2013 [of the] Common Era", again showing that the year is a reference, not a counter.

You're right though in that we now rarely see any suffix on the date any more, which could confuse it.

Add into that the problem that we mix references with counters - We write the date as a reference, but the time as a counter - it's not surprising that people will get confused and assume there was a year zero. There's an hour zero, so why not a year zero?

Our current calendar system is a bit of a mess, requiring tweaks and adjustments all over the place, it would be nice to make something more refined with a proper astronomical basis.

Oh, around here you think time goes that way, yeah? If there is no actual "Year Zero" then referring to this transition point between BC and AD is rather misleading. It should henceforth be called NULL.

[-0-] wrote: »

Time does not exist.

Block universe - it's time Jim, but not as we know it:D

josip wrote: »

Dude, do you even code?

Nope, I starts my counting with 1, it's how I was raised and it's how i'll die. :pac: