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Pssst! 2010 does not kick off a new decade
Nashua Telegraph ^ | 12/31/09 | W.B. Heffernan Jr.

Posted on 12/31/2009 2:36:00 PM PST by La Enchiladita

As we approach the end of the year 2009, we are seeing a repeat of the innumeracy that was so prevalent as we came to the end of 1999.

To wit, the first of January 2010 is not the first day of a new decade, but the first day of the last year of the first decade of the 21st century, which began Jan. 1, 2001.

Ours is a decimal system, based on the numbers 1 through 10, and when you count things – be they apples, fingers, cars or years – you begin with 1.

This is because if you don’t have at least one, you have nothing to count. Calling 2009 the end of the decade is akin to telling a child to count his fingers as follows, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and telling him: “You have 10 fingers.”

As final emphasis, in our decimal system any number ending in zero is the final number in a group of 10. A number ending in two zeroes is the final number in a group of a hundred, whilst three zeroes is the last in a group of a thousand, etc.

Why is this hard for otherwise intelligent people to grasp?

Oh, and in passing, saying that “most people think this is the end of the decade” is of no import whatsoever. Numbers, arithmetic, mathematics is not subject to “what people think.”


TOPICS: History; Science
KEYWORDS: happy2010; notanewdecade
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To: La Enchiladita

Okay, I get it, but by this logic you would also say that a 20-year-old is in his teens or a 50-year-old is in his forties. Base-10 system and all, we just don’t do it. IMO, this is a case where the intuitive, practical understanding of the general public has got to trump the esoteric mathematical correctness of a few ultra-literal snobs.


41 posted on 12/31/2009 3:28:12 PM PST by FelixFelicis (When can we *change* back? [Get yer bumper sticker at www.cafepress.com/deepright!])
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To: La Enchiladita

I also say it will be “twenty-ten” not “two-thousand and ten” ... as in “nineteen-ten” not “one-thousand nine hundred and ten” the way the media morons would say it ...


42 posted on 12/31/2009 3:28:45 PM PST by SkyDancer ('Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not..' ~ Thomas Jefferson)
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To: La Enchiladita

>> The year 1 A.D. ended one year after the birth of Christ.

When did it begin?


43 posted on 12/31/2009 3:29:10 PM PST by Gene Eric (Your Hope has been redistributed. Here's your Change.)
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To: DennisR
Our calendar purportedly begins with the birth of Christ in 0 A.D., right?

Wrong. There was no year "0".

44 posted on 12/31/2009 3:29:56 PM PST by Inyo-Mono (Had God not driven man from the Garden of Eden the Sierra Club surely would have.)
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To: FelixFelicis
a few ultra-literal snobs.

Oh gosh, I am so busted:^)

45 posted on 12/31/2009 3:30:55 PM PST by La Enchiladita (The Light shines in the darkness.)
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To: Gene Eric

See #44.


46 posted on 12/31/2009 3:31:26 PM PST by La Enchiladita (The Light shines in the darkness.)
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To: BigSkyFreeper

Aha. So now we know why the dreaded Y2K collapse never happened when 2000 AD started!


47 posted on 12/31/2009 3:31:46 PM PST by hellbender
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To: Inyo-Mono
Wrong. There was no year "0".

You mean the First State Bank of Bethlehem didn't have a year "0" calendar?

48 posted on 12/31/2009 3:32:08 PM PST by N. Theknow (Kennedys: Can't fly, can't ski, can't drive, can't skipper a boat, but they know what's best.)
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To: Inyo-Mono

>> Wrong. There was no year “0”.

Then what year preceded 1 AD, 1 BC? What followed 1 BC?


49 posted on 12/31/2009 3:32:25 PM PST by Gene Eric (Your Hope has been redistributed. Here's your Change.)
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To: SnakeDoctor

Yeah, let’s get on to more important things — like is it “two thousand and ten” or “twenty-ten”? Or, will there REALLY be a “blue moon” tonight....

Anyway, Happy New Year to everyone!


50 posted on 12/31/2009 3:34:15 PM PST by mikrofon (At least I *think* it's a new year...)
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To: Petronski

IMHO, the eighties didn’t start until Jan 20, 1981. That was when the last of the rubbish from the 1970s was swept to the curb and dumped back in Georgia.


51 posted on 12/31/2009 3:35:07 PM PST by MediaMole
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To: La Enchiladita
in our decimal system any number ending in zero is the final number in a group of 10. A number ending in two zeroes is the final number in a group of a hundred, whilst three zeroes is the last in a group of a thousand, etc.

I am in total agreement as to decimal numbers, I still have a hard time with AM starting at 12 then running 1 through 11...

Regards,
GtG

52 posted on 12/31/2009 3:35:22 PM PST by Gandalf_The_Gray (I live in my own little world, I like it 'cuz they know me here.)
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To: Inyo-Mono; DennisR

And calendars weren’t based on the birth of Christ. The Julian was created 46 years before Christ was born and the Gregorian calendar (invented by Pope Gregory XIII) was created 1582 years after Christ was born.


53 posted on 12/31/2009 3:35:39 PM PST by BigSkyFreeper ("Ked Tennedy would have been plowed... I mean, proud today..." - Senator Max Baucus (Drunk-MT))
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To: MediaMole
IMHO, the eighties didn’t start until Jan 20, 1981.

Bizarre.

So a year pronounced "nineteen eighty" is not part of the eighties, but a year pronounced "nineteen ninety" is?

54 posted on 12/31/2009 3:36:49 PM PST by Petronski (In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
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To: hellbender

Y2K was doomed to happen from the moment computer chips were made. No one back then ever thought computers would have been around this long.


55 posted on 12/31/2009 3:37:34 PM PST by BigSkyFreeper ("Ked Tennedy would have been plowed... I mean, proud today..." - Senator Max Baucus (Drunk-MT))
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To: Gene Eric
Then what year preceded 1 AD, 1 BC? What followed 1 BC?

1 B.C. went right into 1 A.D. with no year 0 in between.

56 posted on 12/31/2009 3:37:42 PM PST by Inyo-Mono (Had God not driven man from the Garden of Eden the Sierra Club surely would have.)
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To: mikrofon
Or, will there REALLY be a “blue moon” tonight....

Only if it's clear out tonight!  The next New Years blue moon won't happen until 2029!

57 posted on 12/31/2009 3:40:20 PM PST by BigSkyFreeper ("Ked Tennedy would have been plowed... I mean, proud today..." - Senator Max Baucus (Drunk-MT))
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To: Gene Eric

That is a problem, isn’t it?

As far as I know, theoretically, the year Christ was born was AD 1 (the year of our Lord 1, or the first year of our Lord).

The year before that was 1 BC.

But since He was probably born between 4 and 6 BC, this whole argument is really very silly (except in the case of the ordinal numbering of centuries, an entirely artificial construct anyway).


58 posted on 12/31/2009 3:40:26 PM PST by Petronski (In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
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To: DennisR

>> Our calendar purportedly begins with the birth of Christ in 0 A.D., right?

This is crazy. Of course there’s 0 AD. There’s also -1 AD, and there’s also 3010 AD.

A decade is a period of 10 years. From the zero time AD, the 10 year interval completes 10 years thereafter.

All I want to know is how many days elapsed between zero time AD and what’s considered to be 1 AD. If zero, then the decade intervals are 1, 11, 21, 31... But if 1 year elapsed between time zero AD and 1 AD, then the decade intervals are 0, 10, 20, 30...


59 posted on 12/31/2009 3:42:36 PM PST by Gene Eric (Your Hope has been redistributed. Here's your Change.)
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To: La Enchiladita

Glad to know that the year 2000 was part of the 90’s....


60 posted on 12/31/2009 3:43:52 PM PST by freebilly (No wonder the left has a boner for Obama. There's CIALIS in soCIALISt....)
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