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Subject: Re: [beginner] What's wrong?
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On Fri, Apr 1, 2016, at 19:29, Michael Selik wrote:
> Humans have always had trouble with this, in many contexts. I remember
> being annoyed at folks saying the year 2000 was the first year of the new
> millennium, rather than 2001. They'd forgotten the Gregorian calendar
> starts from AD 1.

Naturally, this means the first millennium was only 999 years long, and
all subsequent millennia were 1000 years long. (Whereas "millennium" is
defined as the set of all years of a given era for a given integer k
where y // 1000 == k. How else would you define it?)

And if you want to get technical, the gregorian calendar starts from
some year no earlier than 1582, depending on the country. The year
numbering system has little to do with the calendar type - your
assertion in fact regards the BC/AD year numbering system, which was
invented by Bede.

The astronomical year-numbering system, which does contain a year zero
(and uses negative numbers rather than a reverse-numbered "BC" era), and
is incidentally used by ISO 8601, was invented by Jacques Cassini in the
17th century.



Rule #1 of being pedantic: There's always someone more pedantic than
you, whose pedantry supports the opposite conclusion.