Re: OT:CHAT: Millennium Celebration
From: Pat Bass <bpbass@gj.net>
John, Jeff, and Carolyn,
Wow! I didn't mean to stir up a "tempest in a teapot!" This thing of the year
2000 or the year 2001 being the beginning of the millenium has been debated for
over 20 years in my recollection, and still there is no consensus of opinion.
As far as I'm concerned, it will just mean I'm a year older either way! Hope
the Y2K bug doesn't really affect us as much as some think it will. Perhaps
we'll have to don our Victorian clothes and pretend we're in the 1900's! :>)
Pat in CO
Jeff and Carolyn Walters wrote:
> John Jones writes:
>
> > Well, NIST sez:
> >
> > When does the next millenium begin?
> > Which begs the question: was the first year yr 0 or yr 1. In the
> transition
> > from BC to AD was there a year zero? Did it belong to BC or AD. I am sure
> some
> > scholarly types somewhere have figured this out already, but it would
> seem
> > from the NIST position that the first year was year 1. However I seem to
> > remember refences to year 0 in various places.
>
> John,
>
> There never was a year Zero. According to the calendar system in current
> use, the day after December 31, 1 BC was January 1, 1 AD. Therefore, the
> number of years between the present (1999 AD) and an event that happened BC
> is one less than the sum of the two numbers (for example, Rome was founded
> in 756 BC, which is 2,754 years ago).
>
> Prior to the beginning of the present century, Britain's Astronomer Royal
> decreed that 1900 was the 100th year of the 19th Century and that the 20th
> Century began on January 1, 1901 (which is quite correct, technically
> speaking). No one in this country paid much attention to him. I read in an
> article earlier this year that his successor issued the same decree
> regarding the millenium, but that no one, even in Britain, is paying much
> attention this time around. Commonsense feels that there is a bigger
> difference between 1999 and 2000 than there is between 2000 and 2001, and
> in this case commonsense is going to prevail, even though its perception
> does not accurately reflect the reality of the calendar.
>
> Jeff Walters
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