Re: What are we going to do with our clocks at 2000 AD?

[rubywand@swbell.net]

Nathan Mates writes ...
> 
> ....
>    A milennium is 1000 years. (That's what it means in Latin.) Calling
> "January 1st, 1AD" the start of a milennium, the end of that milennium
> is that date _plus_ one thousand years, or January 1st, 1001. Verify
> that with a pocket calculator if that's too hard for you to grasp.
> 
>    Also, you rather overestimate the sorry state of affairs that
> Europe was in at 1000-1001AD. Almost all of the population lived in a
> feudal ("futile," thanks to Calvin & Hobbes :) system, working in the
> same occupation (mostly farming) from cradle to grave. Education was
> reserved for only the very rich or thoise in monastaries, and while
> some may have noticed the year, the average peasant on the dirt road
> didn't know or care about the year. There were a bunch of wackos just
> like yourself who thought that a lot of zeros in the year meant
> something, and as we can tell, nothing really happened.
> 
> ....
>
>    Whatever controlled substances your're ingesting are interfering
> with your logic and your math. 2001 is the start of the third
> milennium from a rather arbitrary and _WRONG_ date.  Jesus was born
> 4-7 B.C., so if you do the math correctly, we're already 2 milennia
> past that date. You've also been totally ignoring that little fact
> that the calendar's off by a few years, because you're got a bunch of
> petty fantasies about a bunch of zeroes in a base 10 counting system.
> Apart from a whole lot of wackos like you ....
>

     To continue ...

     There can be no question that the 1000th year of our Lord was the 
beginning of "a new millenium". It is so defined and marked in history by 
the same authority which identified and named "1 A.D.".

     Clearly, the present civilization has accepted this convention. That 
is, the authority which, today, defines "meter", "second", and 
"millenium", recognizes the current year as "1997 A.D." And, just as 1000 
A.D. began a millenium, so, too, will 2000 A.D. (1000 + 1000) begin the 
next.

     That some persons may have difficulties with civilization's decision 
comes as no surprise. They are confused by the absence of a year 
identified as "0 A.D." and reason that this leaves just 999 
years before the beginning of a millenium in 1000 A.D..

     Evidently, it has not occurred to these persons that the calendrical 
authorities of the 1000th year of our Lord might not have been the fools 
they imagine. There was no "0th year of our Lord" because it is a 
nonsense concept. There was, however, a year before "1 A.D." It is, 
sometimes, called "1 B.C.". This is the elusive 0th year of the 1000 year 
period preceding 1000 A.D..


     Should logic, common sense, and authority fail to enlighten and 
persuade, then, there is this:

     You are, of course, free to form a cult and welcome the coming 
Millenium whenever you wish. If, however, you don your propeller beanies, 
collect your furs and whistles, and rush yeowling into the streets at 
12:00:01 of January 1, 2001, you will discover that you are one year late 
for the big celebration.  


Rubywand