The Great Time Debate!

This has bothered my since 1999 (and it's coming around again). The world was about to enter a new millennium. Or was it? Where did we start the clock? Some say you don't have a day 0....you start at 1. So that shifts the count from 0-9 to 1-10. The brain wants to think that all the single digits belong in one group, once you pass over to 10, that starts a new group, and all 2 digit numbers belong in their group corresponding to the first digit in the 10s spot.

We were all raised that the 1900s were the 20th century. So the 100s were the 2nd century, and all the double digit years AD were the 1st century. But you have to start at 0 to go forward to get to 1, don't you? I mean, there is BC and AD. I was always told that BC was Before Christ, and AD was After Death...or something like that. So if "Christ" died at 32,33 something around there, what are those years? What are they called? It's the ending point for BC and starting of AD...it's the "middle"... Between -10 and 10 is 0. It is a point regardless. It's the starting point.

I see both sides of the coin here, but how people have put it back in 1999 about the new millennium really started in 2001, the brain just want's to say NO. 19xx does not belong in the 20xx group, just like 201x does not belong in the 200x group.

So, here we are, on the doorstep of 2011, coming out of 2010 and people are saying we are beginning a new decade. I feel otherwise, only because I'm on that side of the fence. I hear what the other side is saying, but the brain just doesn't want to agree, mathematically.

I wonder if all the past generations had this debate every 10 years, or every time we turned into the next century...and what did they conclude?

So, what do you think? Are we heading into a new decade? Or are those people just a year behind?

Do you start counting with zero or one? 2011 is the start of a new decade.

have to start from 0, you have to advance some to reach 1. Just how my brain works...
You have to advance to get to 1...so you had to start before 1. Just like filling a gallon of gas. You don't automatically have 1 gallon. You have to fill the container...all them increments between 0 and 1.
On the clock (military time here) Zero Hundred hours (12am) is the beginning of a new day. When the clock hits midnight, it's still not the previous day? You have to travel 60 minutes before you hit One Hundred Hours (1am). You have to waint 24 hours before you have spent 1 day. See what I'm saying? It's all a matter of point of view I guess.

Flak Monkey wrote:

have to start from 0, you have to advance some to reach 1. Just how my brain works...
You have to advance to get to 1...so you had to start before 1. Just like filling a gallon of gas. You don't automatically have 1 gallon. You have to fill the container...all them increments between 0 and 1.
On the clock (military time here) Zero Hundred hours (12am) is the beginning of a new day. When the clock hits midnight, it's still not the previous day? You have to travel 60 minutes before you hit One Hundred Hours (1am). You have to waint 24 hours before you have spent 1 day. See what I'm saying? It's all a matter of point of view I guess.

Again, when you count, say on the fingers, do you start with zero or one? Most folks, including myself, start with one, thus ending with ten.

LOL you both have valid points but its all a matter of persective and as to the "military clock" Most of the world uses the 24 hr clock!

LOL. I always thought this would be a great topic for a debate class.

Here is the reason that my way of thinking is...well...wrong.

I'm applying mathematical reasoning where they do not apply... ie. the Gregorian calendar. As mentioned, there is no day 0. Reason being is when the present system we use to count years was invented by a scholar called Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century (and later established around Europe) they used Roman numerals which did not have zero. Therefore 1 BC is the year before AD 1, with no intervening year 0.

And these smaller segments that make up our year (days) are looked at as blocks of time. I'm implying that you have to travel or add to, to get to a number instead. ie. a baby is not automatically a day old until the next day. He had to be out of mom for 24 ours to be a day old. Where in the calendar way of seeing this, is you are born and that is day 1 as a whole, and not a point to be reached. So technically, you become 1 day old on your 2nd day of life. Same reason why the 1900s were the 20th century.

Even though, technically, this is the way things are, visually they don't look right, as I pointed out above.

And the whole BCE/BC and AD/CE debate is another story. One thing I learned in that search was AD started on the day Jesus was born, not after his death. It's Latin for Anno Domini, which means "in the year of our Lord," and not After Death, as many of us were told growing up (my wife included) So this takes care of the gray area of his life un-accounted for....

(DC)DEMONSLAYER wrote:

Again, when you count, say on the fingers, do you start with zero or one? Most folks, including myself, start with one, thus ending with ten.

But really you do start with zero when counting your fingers. You just don't consciously say "zero fingers" before you start to count them. Then the first one is one, and so forth...

emetakleze wrote:

(DC)DEMONSLAYER wrote:

Again, when you count, say on the fingers, do you start with zero or one? Most folks, including myself, start with one, thus ending with ten.

But really you do start with zero when counting your fingers. You just don't consciously say "zero fingers" before you start to count them. Then the first one is one, and so forth...

Hmmm, true (waving right hand on the wrong side of the left hand)

Um zero fingers equals fist!

And 1 finger can be many different things.
1 can be used for hitch hiking, and another can be used if the car didn't stop to pick you up.

now on the hitching side here in the states we use the thumb to ask for a ride..in Germany and most of Europe as I was told when I 1st got over there they point with the Index finger down the road to ask for a ride since the thumb will more likely get your butt ran over or tromped by someone since its something bad ( they refused to tell us what it meant lol)

dom60 wrote:

now on the hitching side here in the states we use the thumb to ask for a ride..in Germany and most of Europe as I was told when I 1st got over there they point with the Index finger down the road to ask for a ride since the thumb will more likely get your butt ran over or tromped by someone since its something bad ( they refused to tell us what it meant lol)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumbs_Signal

Interesting reading....

dom60 wrote:

Um zero fingers equals fist!

Flak Monkey wrote:

And 1 finger can be many different things.
1 can be used for hitch hiking, and another can be used if the car didn't stop to pick you up.

LOL!