Math is hard. Apparently

[madbaker]

2010 is the start of a new year. It is not the start of a new decade. Nor was 2000 the start of a new millennium. You start a new cycle with year 1, not year 0.

To pre-empt the "If that's how people use it, it's correct" argument, I offer this riddle:

Q: "How many legs does a dog have if you call a tail a leg?"
A: "Four. Calling a tail a leg does not make it one."

What I'm reading: Ken Scholes, Canticle

Comments

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

No.

Count to ten: 1, 2, 3... 10.

[aimeric.livejournal.com]

No computer scientist starts with 1! (okay, unless you're programming in old versions of Fortran). Arrays/etc are 0-indexed.

It always bugs the hell out of me that there is no year 0. It does mean that the last decade BC is 10BC - 1BC and the first decade is 1AD - 10AD (instead of 10 - 1BC, then 0-9 AD). Personally, though, I really, really, *REALLY* wish the latter was the system we used.

Still, if you take AD literally, then we're stuck. 1AD is indeed the first Year of (someone's) L-rd.

Of course, if one terms a decade as any 10 years, then one can get away with it to some extent...but the 1st Decade of (someone's) L-rd is still, by definition, 1AD to 10AD.

(now if we could just change AD to "Number of Years After the Birth of (someone's) Lord", then we could number starting from 0, and I'd feel MUCH better)

(actually, if I want to get *REALLY* pedantic, one could *still* define the 1st Year of (someone's) Lord as 0. Ordinals and Cardinals do not have to match. If I have a sequence 0,1,2,3...9, then 0 is the 1st number, so 0 is the 1st year of (someone's) Lord. But no one listens to me anyway...)

[goldenstag.livejournal.com]

But computer scientists aren't people ... have you ever eaten with one? (Oh yeah, you are one ...) heh.

Working with different programming languages can get weird, as some start counting at 1, some start at 0 ... (January = month 0 ... that takes some getting used to).

[fionnbharro.livejournal.com]

You don't play football, do you (I mean the 'American' kind -- not soccer)?

There's a fifty-yard line right smack-dab in the middle of the field, with a 49-yard line on either side.

Now; contrast this with Canadian Rules American Football.

See? See?!!?

Playing Devil's Advocate

[aimeric.livejournal.com]

(first, note that I agree that, under current definitions, the "1st decade of the 21st century" is 2001 - 2010)

Consider:
How many days are in a year? Depends on the year. In some cases, 365. In others, 366.

So how many years are in a decade? Why not define the 1st decade as 1-9 and everything else AD as xxx0 - xxx9?
(of course, the last decade BC is still 10 - 1 BC, so people will still complain).

Of course, a counter to this is that a year is defined the way it is to prevent the drifting of the seasons, because the earth does not circle the sun in an integral number of days. The constraint is therefore based on the physics. No such constraint exists with the definition of decade, and besides, "decade" means 10 (my counter to the last is that December isn't the 10th month anymore, either).

(Of course, I still want a Year 0, dammit! Then again, I might as well ask for a Jan 0 as well, while we're at it, which I suspect wouldn't go over so well)

And regarding your riddle, I have a LONG response to that, which I'll save for a separate post. (short response: I know the intent, but the phrasing is ambiguous in at least a couple of respects, so there are multiple possible answers. If you want a single answer, phrase the question unambiguously. Then again, I suspect that the point of posing the riddle is a presumption that there is only one correct interpretation, so that actually restating it unambiguously destroys its use as a riddle :) )

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

I want a Year 0 as well.