10th July 2008, 5:48 PM
(This post was last modified: 10th July 2008, 6:15 PM by Dark Jaguar.)
A Black Falcon Wrote:You know, a while ago I realized that decades and centuries are all wrong too... if there's no year zero, why do decades and centuries start on the zero year too?
You see that's the thing. From there the next logical step is realizing that if we apply it to the 1000's, the 100's, and the 10's, there's no logical reason why the 1's should be an exception. Same logic applies. No year zero means that the year 2008 is actually the year 2007.
And that is when I realized we have an absurdity in place. What are we to do? Move the entire calendar back a year? That, would actually balance it. The calendar would then start at the year 0. However, no one's going to do that. So, we might as well just make 1 BC the year 0 AD (meanwhile 1 AD can be 0 BC), as astronomers do, and it'll make things a whole lot easier. It's not really much different than making 24:00 synonemous with 00:00 in military time.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)