I happen to like the millenium to begin in 2000, but there is also
the liguistic element to this argument. AD (anno domini) is, I
think, a possesive (the lord's year), and one is not one when one is
in one's first year, nor 2000 in AD2000.
BJB
--- In BoundaryPoint@y..., "Grant Hutchison" <granthutchison@c...>
wrote:
> > Purists, of course, argue that the new millenia doesn't start
until
> 2001.
> Yeah, what was all that about? Those purists were never that pure
if
> you ask me.
> We all know the argument - there was no year zero, so the start of
> year 2 was just the end of one elapsed year; start of year 11 was
the
> end of ten elapsed years, start of 2001 the end of 2000 elapsed
years.
>
> But the count was set up retrospectively, and one of the few things
> we know about the birth of Christ is that it wasn't on the
Christmas
> Day before AD 1, so there isn't a real historical event to count
> from. So we're perfectly free to stick a year zero in there if we
> want, and make 1BC = Year 0, 2BC = Year -1, 3BC = Year -2, and so
on.
> Which is *exactly* the way astronomers have been numbering the
years
> for a couple of centuries, now. So for astronomers, there *was* a
> year zero, and the end of 1999 *was* the end of the 2000th year in
> their system!
> And who were the "purists" who sniffed at the dumb folk who
couldn't
> do simple arithmetic? Astronomers.
>
> Grant