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.”
I’m in agreement there...
The news media has ceased to amuse me long ago.
But they are all the evidence I need for private education.
Whether it is home school, Christian, or some form of both, or private.
But they are talking this same sort of buffoonery daily. That’s why I turned them off in 2006.
The purist are right on this one, but in the scheme of things, I fail to see why anyone would get worked up about this.
It may be simple math ... but it is also an irrelevant technicality by which people attempt to make themselves feel superior to everyone that is celebrating a new decade.
For the record, 2010 kicks off a new decade if you started counting with 2000. It doesn’t matter where you started at the beginning of the calendar ... it matters where you started for this 10-year period.
SnakeDoc
The beginning of the new decade is indeed 2011, but our number system is not based on 1-10, it’s based on 0-9.
1 A.D. is part of the First Century, which is 1 A.D. to 10 A.D. This being the 21st Century (2001 to 2100) this is the last year of the first decade. Decade is derived from the Latin decas meaning ten. Other words for spans of years also come from Latin: lustrum (5 years), century (100 years), millennium (1000 years).
Since the common calendar starts from the year 1, its first full decade contained the years from 1 to 10, the second decade from 11 to 20, and so on. The interval from the year 2001 to 2010 could then be called the 201st decade, or 21st Century, using ordinal numbers.
LOL!!!
The real question is: Why do you want the “noughties” to be over? LOL!!
So.... you’re telling us it’s a new decade in the populist sense... *sigh*
Yes, it was a big dust-up 2000 vs. 2001. Somehow, I remember Peter Jennings being at the center of the controversy? Can’t remember on which side.
It's not math snobs, it's calendar purists. To a math snob the issue is not worthy of attention.
Elegantly stated. Love your tagline too:)
It’s a new decade in a cardinal sense of counting, in the ordinary vernacular of everyday life, we can’t call something the “twenties” yet priggishly insist they do not start until 2021. Of course they start in 2020...the nature of that colloquial decade-naming device is to refer to the last two digits as a shorthand.
The noughties (oughties?) are ending tonight and the...what? teenies?...are starting, tonight.
But technically, the “second decade of the twenty-first century”—a different creature altogether—starts next year at this time.
I agree with the author when it comes to determining Decades, Centuries, Days of the Month, etc.
HOWEVER, this statement is absolutely false: “Ours is a decimal system, based on the numbers 1 through 10”
Ours is a decimal system alright, based on the numbers 0 through 9. There is no such single number as ‘10’.
In binary, there is 0 through 1. You can’t say binary is based on 1 through 1. Nor can you say Octal is based on 1 through 9 (because in octal there is no such number as 9).
There was no year zero, and common calendars begun in 1 A.D. Y2K had nothing to do with centuries and passage of time. Y2K’s problem was the computer calendar saw the year in two digits (1980 was interpreted as 80 by the computer), or in the format MM-DD-YY for those of us in the United States and DD-MM-YY elsewhere (and military installations). The year 2000 meant that the year according to the computer would be 1900 (more accurately it would have reverted back to the year the computer chip was made). Chip makers now create computer chips with 4 places for the year (YYYY) instead of two. Computers would continue to work fine, it was just the parts of the system that involved the passage of time that would see problems.
Maybe I do not understand, but 2010 is, indeed, the beginning of a new decade. Here’s why:
Our calendar purportedly begins with the birth of Christ in 0 A.D., right? So the first ten years are the years 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. That is ten years - one decade. So the second decade begins in the year 10. If you follow this logic up through the decades since Christ’s birth, 2010 is, indeed, the beginning of a new decade.
Not sure why that is so hard to understand for so many people.
Yes, but when I give my age (which isn’t often!), the number indicates what time has passed not what is to come.
I actually remember similar debates being made as we rang in 1980 :). I don’t remember much of a ruckus when 1990 rolled around; but, the purests were back in 2000.
When you but an oldies cd, its for the ‘fifties’, to include 1950. When people look back at the decade, they include 2000. Its a pop culture definition, not a mathmatical definition.
And if a decade is strictly speaking a 10 year period, what does it matter what year we start counting at. Why not start at 5. Its not like the news commentators are saying ‘this is the end of the 200th decade since the birth of Christ’. They are just saying its a new decade...as they count it. I for one will now measure decades with 2009 as my starting point, to commemorate the New Messiah and Almighty Purple Lipped Saviour.
Good thing this guy is not in control of counting. In programming, yes, it is convenient to have an array that has an index of 0. That helps during calculations. But it is better conceptually to have indices begin at 1.
The year 2009 ends 10 years of years beginning in 2000. It is the last year of the first decade of the 2000s.
nothing new here... yet 99% of the world is confused by this
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