🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <25...@stl.stc.co.uk>, sc...@stl.stc.co.uk (Mike Scott) writes:
> In article <14...@skye.ed.ac.uk> rbk@aiai.UUCP (Richard Kirby) writes:
> >Since I last posted to alt.folklore.computers about the year 2000 being a leap
> >year, but not 2100, I have received several messages along the lines of 2000 
> >is the last year of this century, not the start of the next. Well this is 
> >clearly WRONG. Consider:-
> 
> Sorry, *you* are wrong.
> >
> >This is the twentieth century right, but why?
> >Because its 19xx + 1, hence the year 2000 will be in the 21st century cause its
> >20 + 1.
> >
> >Jesus, was born. 1 A.D was when he was 1 year old, and starting his 2nd year.
> 
Etc. We've seen it all by now.
Anyway, whether or not Jesus was born at a spurious 0 A.D., or 1 A.D., or
1 B.C. +/- 10 years, the problem is not a mathematical one (such as would
inspire "logical" discussion among hackers), but one of convention.  The
doubt has been raised whether the concept of mathematical zero was used
in that age, at least with regard to year numbers, but even moreso, and
regardless of whether Jesus existed or was born at the beginning of the
arbitrary millenium, it is certainly unlikely that the convention of breaking
all history into B.C. and A.D. segments occurred anywhere near the reported
lifetime of Jesus.
But, taken as given that Jesus was born at the start of the 1st millenium
of the so-called "Common Era" (no offense, all you Muslims), the statement
that Jesus was 1 year old in 1 A.D. would seem to imply that He was born
during the prior year.
Or, based on the recent emperor upgrade we experienced here in Japan, it
might have been the convention at the time of establishment of this calendar
system that the 1st year A.D. was calculated as a partial year dating from
Jesus's birthday to the end of the year, so that the last year of B.C. and
the first year of A.D. would share the same 365.25-day fiscal year (when
the Showa emperor died at the beginning of this year, the brief 64th year
of Showa ended and immediately the 1st year of Heisei--still unnamed at the
time--started, thus making coins stamped Showa 64 into valuable collector's
items indeed).  This could have been the virtual 0 A.D. some commentators
referred to, or it could have been 1 A.D. (if it was not ignored entirely).
But regardless, I think that this is a problem for historians, not
mathematicians/logicians.
Did anybody celebrate the coming of the new century on Jan. 1, 1901?
With thousands of centenarians alive in the U.S., surely someone must still
remember...Any of you crusty Napier's bones hackers out there care to
comment?

Edgar M. Cooke                 || My employers can't even read my
SRA Inc., Tokyo, Japan         || opinions, so it's academic whether
cooke%s...@uunet.uu.net   || they agree with them or not...