Subject: Re: Really Abitrary Points<br/>
Date: Aug 09, 2001 @ 23:12<br/>
Author: Grant Hutchison (&quot;Grant Hutchison&quot; &lt;granthutchison@...&gt;)<br/>
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<div id="ygrps-yiv-348506418"><blockquote><span title="ireply">&gt; Purists, of course, argue that the new millenia doesn&#39;t start until <br/>
 </span></blockquote>2001.<br/>
Yeah, what was all that about? Those purists were never that pure if <br/>
you ask me.<br/>
We all know the argument - there was no year zero, so the start of <br/>
year 2 was just the end of one elapsed year; start of year 11 was the <br/>
end of ten elapsed years, start of 2001 the end of 2000 elapsed years.<br/>
<br/>
But the count was set up retrospectively, and one of the few things <br/>
we know about the birth of Christ is that it wasn&#39;t on the Christmas <br/>
Day before AD 1, so there isn&#39;t a real historical event to count <br/>
from. So we&#39;re perfectly free to stick a year zero in there if we <br/>
want, and make 1BC = Year 0, 2BC = Year -1, 3BC = Year -2, and so on. <br/>
Which is *exactly* the way astronomers have been numbering the years <br/>
for a couple of centuries, now. So for astronomers, there *was* a <br/>
year zero, and the end of 1999 *was* the end of the 2000th year in <br/>
their system!<br/>
And who were the &quot;purists&quot; who sniffed at the dumb folk who couldn&#39;t <br/>
do simple arithmetic? Astronomers.<br/>
<br/>
Grant</div>