LWN's 2020 vision

Posted Jan 2, 2020 3:17 UTC (Thu) by areilly (subscriber, #87829)
In reply to: LWN's 2020 vision by excors
Parent article: LWN's 2020 vision

The first century was an invention of the sixth century, so it doesn't really matter how many years it had, and arguments to logic generally get confused about the non-existence of 0AD (1BC leads straight to 1AD in Anno Domini reckoning). No one was counting years that way, at that time.
So there isn't even anything contradictory about starting the 21st century in the year 2000, as most of the world actually celebrated. Of course having an excuse for another big party a year later is also fine.

LWN's 2020 vision

Posted Jan 9, 2020 1:10 UTC (Thu) by gwg (guest, #20811) [Link] (1 responses)

> So there isn't even anything contradictory about starting the 21st century in the year 2000, as most of the world actually celebrated. Of course having an excuse for another big party a year later is also fine.

On January 2nd, how many days of January have passed ?
(Hint: It's not 2.)

i.e. the name of the time period is the amount of time that will have passed when that period has ended.
On January 2nd, you are part way into the 2nd day, and 1 and a bit days have passed.
2 days will have elapsed at the start of January 3.

This is why we are in the 21st century, not the 20th.

i.e. there's a difference between measuring and naming, and it's not arbitrary, it's pure logic and maths.

Yes, you can say we're at the start of a new elapsed decade if we add a year at the very start of the epoch and call it "year 0".
But where else in measuring time do we call the first item "0", and add 1 to the total ?

LWN's 2020 vision

Posted Jan 9, 2020 13:07 UTC (Thu) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link]

"But where else in measuring time do we call the first item "0", and add 1 to the total ?"

You mean except "It's 00:30, during the first hour of the day"?