There is still ONE MORE YEAR in the decade, you count from 1 not 0

[wndycty]

The first year of the decade was 2001 not 2000, think about it. . .that is all.

:party::toast::party:HAPPY NEW YEAR:party::toast::party:

[sharesunited]

1. But that would make 2000 part of the nineties.

Not only does that feel intuitively incorrect, it would render meaningless having watched all those 9's roll over to 0's.

[wndycty]

3. OK so was the first year 0? or was it 1?

You start counting at 1 not 0 or at least that is how I count.

[TorchTheWitch]

7. Is that how you count the number of years you've been alive?

That you're age "1" as soon as you're born and age "2" on your first birthday?

[lbrtbell]

30. In parts of the world, yes

In Asia, for example, you're 1 (not "one year old", but just "one"), because it's your first year of existence.

[sharesunited]

8. Unless you are counting someone's age from the date of their birth.

They're here a whole year before they are 1.

[sharesunited]

16. OK I'll accept Wikipedia's explanation, which supports your view.

No version of our calendar has a year zero.

The year 1 was preceded by the year 1BC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1

[lbrtbell]

32. You're right

There is no "year zero". There was 1 B.C. and 1 A.D., and that's why the first decade was years 1-10. Every decade begins with a 1 and ENDS with a 0.

The new millennium began in 2001, not 2000, because 2000 is the "ten" that began in 1991, and ended the last millennium. :)

[valerief]

15. 2000 was part of the 90s. nt

[Maru Kitteh]

25. Yeah, that's why Prince wrote that song about partying like it's 12/31/00

[iamjoy]

28. Oh, Because Prince Is The Authority?

I like the man's music, but he is hardly the expert on math or chronology. It's psychological - we all think of 2000 as the beginning of the new millenium because all the numbers changed. It somehow feels more important. The geeks feel compelled to point out that we didn't start counting at year zero, we started at one, so two thousand years later is 2001, not 2000. Besides, it just feels wrong to put 2000 in with the 90's - it doesn't have a nine in it.

But technically...

[lbrtbell]

33. I point that out, but I'm not a geek by any means

I simply know how to count from one to ten, and when there's no zero year before 1 A.D. (it was 1 B.C.) in our calendar system, that's pretty clear-cut.

Calling 2009 the end of a decade is sort of like saying "ain't got no" is proper grammar. Just because a lot of people do it, doesn't mean it's correct. ;)

[iamjoy]

53. No Offense Meant...

I'm an admitted geek, so I hope you don't think that was an insult.

[cemaphonic]

48. When the subject is "when should we have a big party"

(which, honestly is what most people were concerned with in the Great Millennium Debate), then I would suggest that Prince could be considered an authority.

[Harry Monroe]

27. Actually it was. But the media hype was so great, people chose to ignore this inconvient truth!!

The Christian era started with the year "1". There was no year "0". Therefore the first decade of the Christian era ran from the year 1 to the year 10. And the '90's actually ran from '91 to '01' This decade runs from "01" to "10". Sorry to render your 9's rolling over to 0's meaningless but it's just the odometer effect you're describing.

[Bicoastal]

2. Accurate? Yes.

Does anyone care? No.

I pointed this out 10 years ago, and fellow revelers called me a pedantic bore. This decade, I've decided to remain silent and enjoy the party.

[wndycty]

4. LOL actually this thread has been unrecommneded. . .

LOL

[Quantess]

39. It was me! Because I want this decade to be OVER!

The worst decade ever...is OVER! The 00's have ENDED!
:argh:


Just kidding. I didn't unrec your thread. :)

[Raineyb]

14. I care.

Enough to mention it in more than one thread. It's no wonder we're getting a reputation for being bad at math.

[lbrtbell]

34. Not to mention bad at logic n/t

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. The theremin is a beautiful and important musical instrument which should be respected.

[Orrex]

13. I was so sorry to hear about your brother.

[hlthe2b]

6. Nahh...

A decade is merely 10 years. One can define the start as you please, but by convention we have used it as a sociological construct. The need to mesh concepts of centuries and millennia with a biblical calendar that arbitrarily started with the year 1 AD rather than zero is very artifactual, IMO and has no bearing on the concept of decade as that concept need not be dependent on WHEN we started the calendar. We consider the decades and even name them sociologically by the starting point of 00-- the 60's, the 70's, the roaring 20's. Thus, to define a decade as 2001-2010, rather than 2000-2009 makes no sense.

Besides, I am so desperate to be as far a way from possible from the detestable decade of of GWBush*
Happy NEW Year and Happy New Decade! :toast:

[wndycty]

9. anytime you use phrases such as "sociological construct" this late at night. . .

. . .I'm not about to argue with you. LOL

[hlthe2b]

10. Oh, I thought I'd get you with the "need to be far away from GWB*

decade"... ;)

Well, new decade or not, I'm closing a door and looking forward to 2010! Celebrate! :toast:

[SoCalDem]

49. and then there is Kansas

"the sixties" did not even arrive in Kansas until 1969 :)

[snagglepuss]

51. Thanks for posting

:think:

[chimpymustgo]

54. Good answer!

[KittyWampus]

11. party-pooper. I bet you asked for pocket protectors for Xmas.

[Mz Pip]

12. Same debate went around

at the end of 1999. We still partied more on 12/31/99 than we did on 12/31/00.

now I'm 10 years older and not into partying so much.

Happy New year. Whatever decade it is.

[Batgirl]

17. In order to say the decade began in 2001, that would have to mean the year 2000 was part of the 90s.

Your first birthday happened after you'd been here for 365 days. Your first birthday kicked off the beginning of your second year. You turned two after you'd been here for 2 years.

Your 40th birthday occurs at the end of your 40th year, whereupon you embark on your 41st year of life, which will not be complete until your 42nd birthday, when you will embark on your 43rd year of life.

[Raineyb]

20. When you count by tens it's 10, 20, 30. The decade ends in 2010. n/t

[shadowknows69]

18. You don't know how hard I tried to explain the same thing in 2000

When everyone was celebrating the new Millenium. I was able to explain it to thousands thanks to my radio show, but it didn't catch on.

[cemaphonic]

45. I don't think it's quite the same thing

Millennia and centuries implicitly refer to the beginning of the Common Era, so the fact that the calendar begins with year 1 is an important distinction. But we don't talk about the "199th decade," so considering the decade to start at the -0 year is reasonable, especially since that year is part of the name of the decade.

[SeattleGirl]

19. As long as the aughts go the hell away, I don't care.

2010 just has a nice ring to it.

:)

[jgraz]

24. I hear it's the year we make contact...

:hide:

[SeattleGirl]

31. LOL!

[704wipes]

21. yeah yeah yeah

good luck with that project...

[1]

22. who actually gives a shit about decades? are they meaningful to you?

[lbrtbell]

35. Facts should be meaningful to everyone n/t

[REP]

23. OMG this is series! Everyone should know this highly important thing

[jgraz]

26. I'm a programmer. I count from zero.

Starting the calendar on Year 1 was a bug.

[MindPilot]

40. +1

Or maybe that should be n+1.

[yowzayowzayowza]

57. er mebbie ++n n/t

[me b zola]

29. Where as you are technically correct...

...what defines a decade in practical terms begins when a new number inhabits the 10th's slot. The 20's didn't begin in 1921, the 40's in 1941, nor the fucked nature of the world in 1981 (I've always hated the 80's).

There is technical and practical. The 2000 teens have begun regardless of the lack of technical correctness. It is so.

[lbrtbell]

36. Wrong on two counts

1) Aside from Reagan/Bush, the 1980's were fantastic.

2) Ignoring facts and saying "it is so" does not make it so. That's one step removed from sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming, "La-la-la, I can't hear you!"

[pansypoo53219]

37. the gnews do not agree.

stupid arabs for creating zed.

[Warpy]

38. Picky, Picky, Picky

However, the noughties are finally over, so don't expect anybody to appreciate your nerdy information, accurate though it is.

The decade of hubris, waste, and failure is finally over.

I didn't know how anything could have been worse than the 80s, but the USSC that cheated the neocons into office managed it for us.

I have never been so glad to see any period end in my whole life.

[ZombieHorde]

41. You would be right if calandars were based on math, but calandars are not based on math.

Calendars are strictly a social convention.

If calendars were based on math, a year would be 365.24219 days long, as opposed to 365.25 years long.

Additionally, if calendars were based on math, there would be a year zero. 2010 - 2010 = 0, not -1 or 1 B.C.

[gopwacker_455]

42. now you're just nitpicking

[BlueIris]

43. Yeah, I know. But try telling that to The World At Large. nt

[LooseWilly]

44. If you count from 1... does that mean you count *to* 0?

A "base 10" number system goes from 0-9, and then puts a 1 in front, and again goes from 0-9 (10-19), and so on.

If you start from 1, and count to 10... then why does eleven to nineteen have a "en/teen" suffix (mostly) but 20 has a "enty" suffix? A suffix that goes from "twenty" to "twenty nine"... but which becomes different at "thirty"? 30.

No... the decimal system begins at 0, even if 0 is generally taken for granted... and each new iteration begins with a "prefix number" and another 0, whether the prefix number is an implicit 0 ("00", "01"...) or not.

If John Dee's efforts to re-establish a mathematically correct version of the Julian Calendar in the 16th Century didn't make this fact obvious... I think he should be given some leeway... after all, before he'd tried to import Arabic numeric and algebraic counting systems into the English (Empire's) accounting... Queen Elizabeth was still trying to use scribes using Roman Numeral Systems to do Empire accounts... (MMIX = 2009... try doing your IRS forms in Roman Numerals sometime... and then nit pick that the calendrical conversions that Dee presided over as the court Magus didn't make explicit whether a decade begins in 2010 or 2011... for those for whom mathematics was as much the "realm of Satan" as evolution or same sex marriage are to people today)...

[ProdigalJunkMail]

50. shhhh...you'll confuse people with math n/t

[Raine]

46. That's true but mentally people

feel it's the start of a new decade and you'll never get them to think about it any other way. :shrug:

[TexasObserver]

47. Not true. A decade is what society says it is.

And we, as a society, have long resolved this issue against you.

A decade is marked by the third of the four numbers in the year.

The 1970s ended Dec 31, 1979.

The 1980s ended Dec 31, 1989.

The 1990s ended Dec 31, 1999.

See how easy that is?

However, there is a very small group of people who agrees with you. Very small.

[snagglepuss]

52. Interesting thread in the humble opinion of a curious but

severely mathematically challenged DUer. Reading all the posts has been a series of "oh that's what that means". Very enlightening. Thanks for starting this discussion.

[Obamanaut]

55. In the overall scheme of things, does it really matter a whole lot? nt

[fishwax]

56. EVERY new year is the start of a new decade (as well as the end of an old one)