End of Decade?

Like me? Whenever I count some objects, I point to nowhere in particular and say "zero"; then to the first object, "one"; etc.

I learned to count that way when people kept asking me how many wives I've had. I go "0, 1, 2...Yep, two".

Um.. are you so sure?

What year and day where you born? How long after that was it until your first birthday celebrated? And how much longer after that till your 10th birthday was celebrated?

I think we started this millennium on January 1 2000 if I am not mistaken. The last one started on January 1 1000 and the one before that would have theoretically started on January 1 0000.

My mathematical system says that 2010 years have passed now. That means that 2010 is the beginning of the new decade. Hence the 0 at the furthest right hand digits location.

tcmtech,

You are absolutely right! I don't know what I was thinking but, when I gave it more careful consideration, I could see that my logic was faulty.

Contrarily, I could have characterized my post as a joke, but that would not be responsible.

See, that is the problem. On December 31, 001, only one year (365 days) had passed. On January 1, 002, Only one year and one day had passed, by Dec 31, 002, two years had passed, and so on until Dec 31, 011, ten years had passed.

This problem was highly discussed prior to Dec 31, 2000, when it was expected all computers would die because of their structure, but this never happened. Many thought Dec 31, 1999 was the end of two centuries, but they were a year too soon then. Google Julian and Gregorian years.

On the day and the time of my birth day, I was zero years old. 365 days later, I was one year old, etc. Yes, they counted right on that one. Beginning at zero, after 3.650 days plus 2 leap year days, I had my tenth birthday.

I said they did not count correctly in the Bible, but many people today still do not know how to count.

P E Bobimm

In somewhat the same vein, some are making semantic fodder over what to call this year and decade: is it two-thousand and ten, or twenty-ten?

In this particular instance, the device has not been invented to measure how little I care about this matter.

Twenty hundred and ten.

And somewhat different, but the same...

What do we call the past decade....we had

the roaring 20's

The dismal 30's

the struggling 40's

the booming 50's ......

The 00's just doesn't seem to carry much weight......

"I repeat myself when I'm in distress.

I repeat myself when I'm in distress.

I repeat myself when I'm in distress.

I repeat myself when I'm in distress..."

Thela Hun Ginjeet, King Crimson

This correct argument came up ten years ago with the mistaken millennia change. I'll bet you it will come back in ten years.

Ignorance is curable, but...

I hate it when people bring this up.

Look smart guy, the Websters dictionary definition of the word decade is

a. a group or set of ten

and

b. a Period of ten years.

Counting a decade from 2000-2009 doesn't violate either of those definitions, does it?

The reason you're confused is because when we count we generally start at 1, therefore the tenth digit is 10. With years we start counting decades at 0 (by tradition) and therefore the 10th digit is 9.

So both methods are equally valid ways of counting. Get over yourself. And that goes for all you other pseudo intellectuals that won't shut up about this in some kind of misguided way to seem intelligent.

And that goes for all you other pseudo intellectuals that won't shut up about this in some kind of misguided way to seem intelligent.

...and I am not a (pseudo)intellectual, I am an engineer

Still, it is an interesting subject:

Christians count years before and after Christ's birth, December 25 of the year 1! So would be legitimate to say that the first decade of the Christ era was ended on December 31, of the year 10. If you count the decades starting from year 1, you would need to wait till December 31, 2010 to have an integer number of decades!

On the other hand, would sound logical to consider a decade ended on the December 31 just before the change of the digit indicating "tens" in the year count, like 239, 1459, 2009.

So, dear Roger, you are wrong when you say that we start counting (even decades) at year zero. There is not such year in history!

I wonder if you have any thoughts about global worming

You Wrote:"So, dear Roger, you are wrong when you say that we start counting (even decades) at year zero."

Then it's a good thing that what I actually wrote was:"With years we start counting decades at 0 (by tradition) and therefore the 10th digit is 9"

But hey, why actually read what I wrote when you can just respond to what you wish I wrote.

I'll say it again. The only people who bring this stupid thing up are pseudo-intellectuals trying to sound smart.

But hey, why actually read what I wrote when you can just respond to what you wish I wrote.

Mein liebchen Roger,

What I tried to say was that you can look at the subject from at least two points of view, both based either on tradition or logics. And I have expressed that brilliantly in my preceding post ( ) which made one of the readers to grant a GA, and another one to cancel it!

BTW, any thoughts about this frigid weather, even down here in the Gulf area?

Ok, let me see if I can follow your brilliant argument.

You are saying that when the current system was arbitrarily conceived in AD 525 and then later widely adopted in Europe by the 800's, they created a year AD 1 as a starting point, preceded by 1 BC, which means there was no year 0. Thus, logically, the counting should begin at one meaning that every decade and century ends in 0.

It seems odd that you should accept on faith an arbitrary year one due to popular acceptance and yet reject the popular convention of decades beginning in years ending in 0 because it is inconsistent with the arbitrary precedent you accept.

Also there is this:

The Catholic Church maintained a tabular lunar calendar, which was primarily to calculate the date of Easter, and the lunar calendar required reform as well. A perpetual lunar calendar was created, in the sense that 30 different arrangements (lines in the expanded table of epacts) for lunar months were created. One of the 30 arrangements applies to a century (for this purpose, the century begins with a year divisible by 100).

In other words, the same people who gave us AD 1 also decided to begin centuries in year 0. Go figure.

So you accept one of their arbitrary decisions, but not the other because it is inconsistent with the one you accepted? Truly brilliant.

So why am I calling you a pseudo intellectual?

Only a pseudo intellectual could ignore the leap year issue (look it up genius), the arbitrary origins of the year counting system (Christ was born in year AD 1, really?), not object to people writing 1 AD rather than the correct AD 1, and yet fixate on the counting issue. It takes a willful blindness to the absurdity of the entire situation. Basically you know one fact (there was no year 0), apply counting, and ignore all the other absurdities surrounding the issue thus feeling completely sound in your conclusion.

You have a complete lack of awareness of your own hypocrisy. You ignore all of these other illogical things regarding our year counting system and fixate only on one particular fact that is your pet issue. Give me a break.

I'm pretty sure

the Texan translation for Indel is penguin

run Roger run it's a trap

Maybe a nice bath would help you relax?

So why am I calling you a pseudo intellectual?

Only a pseudo intellectual could ignore the leap year issue (look it up genius),

It takes a willful blindness to the absurdity of the entire situation

You have a complete lack of awareness of your own hypocrisy

You ignore all of these other illogical things regarding our year counting system and fixate only on one particular fact that is your pet issue.

Yes, you are absolutely right. I am all you have mentioned. I have no more arguments.

Er, er, er....Just a question:

WHAT ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING, MAGISTER?

Really? Is that why the 20th century is considered the years 1900 - 1999?

The problem with "Zero" is that it measures nothing.

Boy, one2playwitt. You waited a long time to post that one!

"The problem with "Zero" is that it measures nothing." Or, is Zero the possible beginning of presence of all things.

"The problem with "Zero" is that it measures nothing." 0^OF?

HEHE I ran across this thread and couldn't hold my tongue.

If, before the beginning, is as long as after the beginning, how did we ever get to now? Shouldn't we still be somewhere in the past? =:o) ... unless you want to concede, that is was zero forever ... and then it suddenly wasn't.

PV=nRT is the reason I absolutely dislike the "F" word. ;o)

In time, you will see that my post was quite literal.

I must add, that, I certainly do not have the answer ... nor does anyone, that will respond to it. They can only arbitrarily define it into existence.

You're a living Heaviside step function.

You are absolutely correct ... I try to be positive, otherwise I am nothing. :o)

The way I look at it is to look at the 3rd digit for the decade -

The decade - 1960 - 1969 is known as the sixties and the decade 2060 - 2069 will be known as the sixties.

One good thing about 2010 is that I hopefully will stop starting the date on a cheque with a 19.

If you don't count up or down from zero, I guess you've never written in assembler...
Del

Hey Del, how you doin`? - what year is it?

I've never written an assembler myself.

I think if I write a check I'm supposed to put 2010 on it now.

I've only got one tree in the yard. It's a Pin Oak.

What's an assembler?

I've never seen a Yew.

Do I have to whittle to make arrows?

My American Classic BB gun was just laying around on my desk since the cops told me it was illegal for me to shoot it in the yard.

Apparently it just broke for no good reason.

Alistair is eating catfood out of cans.

Once they shot the French with arrows, running out of arrows, then the French who were tired and wearing too much heavy stuff fell over in the mud, and the archers who were not well dressed hacked and stabbed them.

What year was that?

Think we could get Weapons of Mass Destruction outlawed this year?

Are we old enough to do stupid things like that?

The truck route from NYC to London goes up through Canada and then you got to hovercraft ferry from there to Greenland and Iceland and then you are over there in Ireland. Actually some big ground effect Russian made things would be good.

Direct is not really sensible, and until we get the carbon nanotubes for the space elevator going other applications like heavy monorails sorts of stuff, aren't happening.

In the meantime Lithium in small doses is recommended for bipolar mental problems, and it astounds me it is difficult to get enough for batteries.

All the ditch digging I've done, and I never found gold.

Did Tricky get cancer from eating mice that ate the top off the plastic jar that had the cat food in it?

Should I eat fish?

What happened to the Lemmings?

Are there any left?

I myself am convinced squirrels are semi suicidal.

Should we make the banks correct the calendar?

Is hope useless?

Yes and no is the answer.

...Is he opening the cans himself?

I cut some Hazel shoots yesterday to dry and make into arrows...I usually buy arrow shafts but they are damn expensive £20 a dozen . So makin' some myself will be a saving and a calming activity, pobably use a small plane and sandpaper to get them down to size, straighten them over heat, slow and steady wins the day.
An owl in a sack never hurt anyone as my Big Sis would say.

As long as it's not last year I don't giveadamn
Del

Not yet able to open the cans himself.

He hasn't gotten a rabbit since the kids next door got a trampoline.

Keeps looking though.

I'd wondered about the arrows for I remember my Scout Master saying he once shot a bent one that splintered into his arm, so I'd wondered how you make em straight.

Do all who make arrows heat to straighten? - Or do some stick with short bows and short arrows partly to be able to get a straight shaft more easily?

Yep, bank says write 2010 on the check, computer says 2010, not much worth it to fight about it.

In the meantime Lithium in small doses is recommended for bipolar mental problems, and it astounds me it is difficult to get enough for batteries.

How many well medicated Bi-polars does it take to keep my lights on?

Somehow I got through 2009, and now I'm in 2010, is the way I look at it.

Wasn't last year terrific?

Now that's a topic for discussion !!!

By your logic the 90's ended in 2000. A decade is defined by the "10's" digit. Hence, the aughts, or as I like to call them, the O_o's, is the decade which includes the ten numbers in the series 200x. Why you gotta try and make things difficult?

When is a decade not a decade?

If we take 2000-2009 to be a decade, which it clearly is, just as 1996-2005 is a decade, we can count backward by decades until we get to the "first" decade, years 0-9. Well, there was no year zero, so the first "decade" was 1-9, which is 9 years, and hence not really a decade.

That's one answer, and it has certain conveniences these days (with passionate defenders).

If we want to restore the full quota of years to the first decade, we can include the year 1 BCE. The decades before that would then be 2-11 BCE, 12-21 BCE, etc. That wouldn't be so convenient for them, nor for historians. (Nor do I know of any defenders, although this is kinda necessary for continuity.)

Another way to patch this up would be to allow for overlapping decades. 1 BCE plus 1-9 CE equals the first decade CE. Likewise 9-1 BCE plus 1 CE = the first decade BCE. This gives two overlapping years of ambiguity, which could be a useful source for theological squabbles.

If you don't like that, or the previous 9-year-decade option, how about this? Declare two years zero: 0 BCE and 0 CE. Apart from the initial hassle of shifting both calendars by a year, this would allow us honestly to claim full decades in both directions--...19-10 BCE, 9-0 BCE, 0-9 CE, 10-19 CE, ...--without overlapping in the middle. Any takers? Roger?

I don't understand why an omniscient God would fail to foresee this problem, and maybe ship a few Hindus to the Midde East to tell them about zero, and thereby forestall this ridiculous time warp.

First decade of 21rst century:

The first decade of the 21rst century starts the 1rst January 2001 and ends the 31rst December 2010, because the first year of the 21rst century is 2001.

Please, count: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010.

I have developed a calculation system:

1.-Rule to calculate the century of a given year:

You divide the number of the year by 100.

If the quotient is integer, this is the number of the century

If the quotient is not integer, you take the integer part of the quotient at the left of the comma and add to it the number 1.

Examples.

Year 0 AD: It does not exist

Year 1 AD: 1 divided by 100=0,01, not integer; I add 1 to 0: 0 +1=1. (1)= First century, first year of this century.

Year 99 AD: 99 / 100=0,99; I add 1 to 0: 1+0=1. (1)= First century

Year 100 AD: 100 divided by 100= 1, integer: (1) = First century

Year 101 AD: 101 divided by 100=1,01, not integer. I take the number at the left of the comma, and add 1: 1+1=2; (2)=second century, first year of this century.

Year 1400 AD: 1400 / 100= 14; (14)=14th century

Year 1401 AD: 1401 / 100=14.01. 14 + 1=15. (15)=fifteen century, first year of the 15^th century.

Year 2000 AD: 2000 / 100 = 20; (20)= 20th century

Year 2001 AD: 2001 / 100= 20,01; 20 +1=21; (21)= 21srt century, first year of the 21rst century.

2001 is the first year of the 21rst century

Year 2099 AD: 2099 / 100=20,99; 20+1= 21: (21)= 21rst century.

Year 2100 AD: 2100 / 100=21; integer. (21)= 21rst century

Year 2101 AD: 2101 /100=21,01; 21+1=22. (22)= 22nd century.

2.-Millenniums

The same rule for millenniums, dividing by 1000.

Year 2000: 2000 /1000= 2; (2) second millennium.

Year 2001: 2001 / 1000=2,001 not integer. 2+1=3; (3)=3^rd millennium

2001 is the first year of the 3^rd millennium.

Year 3000: 3000 /1000= 3; (3)= 3^rd millennium

Year 3001: 3001 / 1000=3,001, not integer. 3+1=4 (4)= 4^th millenium

The first year of the 3^rd millennium is the year 3001.

And so on for billenniums, trillenniums

Year 1.000.000: 1.000.000 / 1.000.000 = 1. (1)= 1rst billennium, last year

Year 1.000.001: 1.000.001 / 1.000.000 = 1,000.001 not integer: 1+1=2. (2)= 2nd billennium, first year

Year 2010: 2010 / 1.000.000 = 0,002.010; not integer; 0+1=1. (1)= 1rst billennium

Salvo error u omision.

Save error or omission

Arturo Pérez Rodríguez

So we should ignore the absurdity of when year 1 was determined to have occurred, but we must strictly adhere to the correct counting from that arbitrarily set year? You don't see any inconsistency there?

Is it truly strictly forbidden that there is a divergence between how popular culture and historians count centuries and decades?

Please take your blinders off.

you ever see someone who counts on their fingers from 5 to 10, and comes up needing a 6th didgit. How did so many educated people vote for obamma? how many licks to the center of a tootsie pop? the world will never know.

We have one more year to go in order to finish the first decade of the first century of the 2nd millinium...a big DUHHHH!!!!!

And you can probably blame most of the error on the media and the loss of true common sense within the masses.......who are just like cattle being driven to slaughter and not using their brains....

I was ready to blame the confussion on Obama or Congress.

Counting can be confusion for some people. For example, people in the Bible did not count correctly.

If you watch a runner on a track run a race, when the starting gun fires, you do not say "one one thousandth, two one thousandth, three one thousandth, etc.

The correct way is to say zero one thousandth, one one thousandth, two one thousandth, three one thousandth, etc.

In the Bible, they count Friday as one day, Saturday as one day, and Sunday as one Day, giving them the 3 days. This is not the correct way to count. Actually that is less than a 2 day span, not 3. That is the case for Jesus Resurection. He did rise on the Third Day, but was dead less than 2 days, or about 38 hours more or less, not 72 hours.

In other words, when counting time always start with zero. We will be starting the second decade as of midnight, January 1, 2011.

In both the Julian calendar and the Gregorian calendar, they start with January 1, 0001, and the year preceding A.D. is the year 0001 B.C., or actually the year 0. Therefore, December 31 , 2000 (not Januaary 1, 2000), is exactly 2000 years since January 1, 0001, since there was no year zero. And the first decade started January 1, 2001, and and ends December 31, 2010. We have to wait another year for the end of the first decade in the twenty-first century.

P E Bobimm

P E Bobimm

How many years in a decade? 10.

The 21st century started 1/1/2000.

If you start at 2000 and count through 2009 you'll see 10 years have elapsed, hence a decade.

By your approach, 2091 through 2100 would be the last decade of the 21st century, but 1/1/2100 will be the first year of the 22nd century so how can it be part of the 21st. It follows then that the last decade of the 21st century will be 1/1/2090 through 12/31/2099, if we make it that far.

Perhaps a more relevant question is why this is the 21st century when there were many many centuries before 1/1/00. BC / AD, how can anyone, except perhaps the Chinese - with their own calendar, ignore the basis for our definition of calendar time, our one and only savior.

According to your scheme, the first century would have been only 99 years. Please count correctly. Thank you.

If the first century started with year one then that century and only that century would only have 99 years. If you start with nothing you start at 0. Once you add one the count increments to one. You cannot count a year until a year has elapsed.

There are many calendars, The Chinese, the Jewish, the Gregorian (the most commonly referred to), the Julian, etc.

It would be correct to say the last decade before January 1, 2000 would be January 1, 1990 to December 31, 1999. That is a ten year period called a decade.

However the twentieth century, according to the Gregorian calendar, ended December 31, 2000, NOT December 31, 1999.

We had huge discussions about this during late 1999 and early 2000.

Currently, the Gregorian calendar has a leap year every 4 years, except no leap year every 100 years, except there is a leap year every 1,000 years.

In other words, the year 2000 had a leap year, 2100 will not have a leap year. Mark your calendar.

This whole thread just explained why so many things made don't work right, fall apart, or generally just make the end user go WTF?

This could very well be the solution to one of the greatest mysteries that has plagued mankind since the very beginning and could be why all human efforts eventually fail!

Half of the engineering world references all of their numerical work to 0 as the starting point in all of their designs. The other half references all of their work with 1 as the starting point! Yet both sides commonly work together towards the end design of something which eventually never works exactly the way it was supposed to for some unexplainable reason!

What it may have all just boiled down to is that apparently even after the countless centuries of evolution it took for us to develop our superior intellect we simply still cant count properly!

A decade is 3,650 plus a couple of leap year days long. When someone graduates at age 18, by age 28 a decade has passed. A decade is ten year, never nine years.

But if you are couting time from January 1, 0001, then January 1, 0011 is a decade, and January 1, 0021 is a score.

Millennium

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

A millennium is a period of one thousand consecutive years. When dating years, millennia are usually taken to begin in the years divisible by one thousand, or alternatively in the year after that, e.g., 2000 or 2001. The use of the odd year came from the Anno Domini system of religious dating, where the year 1 was supposedly the first "year of our lord" and thus the first millennium would be years 1 to 1000 and the second millennium would start in 1001.

There was a popular debate leading up to the celebrations of the year 2000 as to whether 2000 was the true "new millennium". Some argued that based on the Anno Domini system, the "true" new millennium would begin in 2001. Others argued that under the Gregorian Calendar centuries should be observed at the first numerical departure from the previous millennium (ie: we are in a new millennium when we stop being in the 1900s). Others argued that our entire system of dates is so arbitrary and meaningless that it is impossible to define the "true" date of a millennium.

20th century was considered to be: 1900-1999

Hence the 1st century was considered to be: 0-99 (where "0" is the year of Christ's birth)

If the 1st century was considered to be "100-199", then what century was the "0-99"? (There can't be such a thing as a "0st century"... Am I right???...)

Furthermore, if the 1st century was considered to be "1-100", then what year was the "0"? (There can't be such a thing as a "0st year"... Am I right???...)

So, of course, the 1st century was "0-99" and, of course, the 21st century is "2000-2099". So, obviously, the first decade of the 21st century was "2000-2009".

To clarify my point that I think is being missed.

The basic argument for decades and centuries ending in years ending in 0 and beginning in years ending in 1 presented here in this thread has been:

"The first year was AD 1, not 0. Therefore the first decade ended AD 10, not AD 9. Thus counting from then to now, decades and centuries should end on years ending in 0 not 9"

Here's the problem with that "proof". Who cares? No where in the definition of decade or century is the above relevant. A decade is a group of ten years. A century 100 years, that's it and that's all. We have the right to group those ten years as we see fit, and for most of us that means 0-9, not 1-0.

Certainly the crux of this issue is there has been a divergence in how historians and popular culture denote the beginning and ending of decades, centuries, and yes, millennia. Historians use the rule that centuries and decades end on years ending in 0 whereas pop culture use the rule that centuries and decades end on years ending in 9. Historians have to worry about counting back to AD 1, the rest of us just worry about the date we write or type.

Both are valid interpretations given the definition of decade and century.

So please, if you are one of those annoying people who get bent out of shape when someone uses the word "got" yet you don't use the word "whom", or you insist that the decade will begin in 2011 when the rest of the world says the new decade has started, or insist that the metric system is a more logical unit system and should be universally adopted, yet you don't use metric time, then I say to you, pseudo-intellectual, please just shut up. You're entitled to your way of delineating decades and centuries, just don't try to force it on the rest of us.

Because as far as I'm concerned, once I had stopped writing 19xx and started writing 20xx, the new century had begun for me. It would have seemed stupid to wait calling it a new century in 2001 because some guy in AD 525 decided to start with AD 1 instead of AD 0 (see how ridiculous what you're saying sounds when I write it like that?). Seriously guys, get over it.

OK. Will a reader please explain why it's 10 years since the Y2K bug, then?

Just to toss another tire on the fire here.

The international time clock system works on a 24 hour cycle that starts with 00:00 00 then ends on 23:59 59.

That seems to indicate that a numerical 0 is used in some time keeping references as the starting point and not 1.

Whew! That's a relief!

Holy moly; everything starts at zero. You have to move away from zero to accummulate. If you were born on 1 Jan 2000 how old are you now? If you said anything other than nine plus a few days, you better check your birth certificate. The first millenium began on day one; Christ's birthday 0000 Anno Domine and continued on for 1000 years until the second millinium began on, what; birthday year 1000? 1000 years had passed in 1000, not in 0999. So it must just be semantics WTF a millenium really is. So, wait a minute, even though most of us know that Christ was really born in the Spring, we celebrate on 25 December. So, why didn't the first millenium start on 25 December?

If I were born on 1 jan 2000, I'm 10

but thanks for playing.

January 1 Kalends Ianuarius

And given the Romans spent most of January (winter solstice) pissed, they weren't likely running a census.

And it's far more likely they do that "after the harvest" - not spring.

But who is going to join a religion that doesn't hold a mid-winter bash? And won't let you go the the "other god's one" either?

This isn't typical mathematics. We got in this very discussion on New Year's Eve and had to Google it. When the world converted from BC to AD, AD started at 1 AD (not 0 AD). Therefore, every decade ends on the last day of the 10th year (e.g. Dec 31, 1990, Dec 31, 2000, etc).

Well, we likes to make it simple.

You Wrote:"Therefore every decade ends on the last day of the 10th year"

Really? So the 3rd decade of the 30 years war (1618 - 1648) began in 1640?, not 1638? Oh, that's not what you meant, then how about this:

How about the the last decade of the 1900s (I said 1900s, not 20th century). Didn't that begin 1990, not 1991?.......

Let's see. 1900-1909 (1st decade of the nineteen hundreds), 1990-99 (last decade of the nineteen hundreds).

Oh, but I forgot that the international definition of decade requires the only reference for counting a decade to be with respect to 1 AD. Wait? There is no such requirement? So then why do people keep repeating that like it's a proof? Why do they say it and then follow that with "therfore"? Forget it, I know the answer to that.

Yeah, I know. Pass the pipe.