Thursday 31 December 2009

Not Quite Yet

Everyone keeps talking about the end of the decade. The TV is full of programmes reviewing the last decade and so on. But, as with the Millennium they are all a year too early!

No one starts counting from zero. Even if you count on your fingers, which is the basis of our decimal system, you don't count the first finger as zero, but as one. The tenth finger is not counted as nine, but as ten. The last number in a decimal based system is the tenth, not the ninth. More importantly there is no year zero. The dating system does not go 1 B.C., 0, 1 A.D., but goes directly from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D.

The start of the current Millennium began on January 1st. 2001, not 2000, as did the first year of the 21st. century, and as did the current decade. The current decade ends not tonight, but a year tonight.

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