Down for the Count
Let’s assume the following question matters: Which of two transition points calls for the greater celebratory frenzy: When, after a millennium of numbering our years beginning with 1, we change that to a 2 for another millennium (the beginning of the year 2000), or 2000 years after an arbitrarily designated demarcation in time between numbering backward and numbering forward (the beginning of the year 2001)? Neither of the two Jan. 1s is the 2000-year anniversary of a major historical event.
Richard J. Warren’s logic (“Illogical Thinking, a No. 1 Complaint,” Feb. 4) can tell him only that Jan. 1, 2001, follows Jan. 1, 1, by 2000 years, not that it deserves more attention than Jan. 1, 2000.
Since no one contests the fact that our calendar has assigned 1 to the first year AD (as well as to the first year BC), Warren’s plea for beginning a count with 1 rather than 0 is mostly irrelevant. However, since he brought it up, I should point out that his example of military time does not, as he seems to think, illustrate a numbering that begins with 1. The 0001 that follows 2400 hours is not the beginning of a new day. It means that the day began one minute earlier.
But wait! No need to hassle ourselves over this matter. History will make the choice for us with the occurrence of the appropriate cataclysmic event--Armageddon, say, or the Second Coming.
AL CLARKE
Thousand Oaks
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You have printed several letters and articles about when this century ends and the next one begins. Mr. Warren’s “illogical” letter on Sunday, Feb. 3, repeated the “fuzzy thinking” that we always count beginning with 1 and not with 0. That may well be true when you count your children, or even the pages in the L.A. Times, but that is not the way centuries have been counted. Never, ever, even once, did anyone say, “This is year 1, and we count from here.” But several centuries later, someone said, “Let’s start counting with that year and go on from here.”
When someone talks about something that happened in the 900s or in the 1400s, you can be sure they are not talking about the years 901 to 1000 or 1401 to 1500, they are talking about all the years beginning with the numbers “9” or “14.” Not once has anyone given a good reason to count the year 2000 as part of the 1900s. It is so crystal clear that Jan. 1, 2000, is the right date to start the new century and the new millennium, and I am seeking even one good reason to let that slip a year.
JAMES T. HUMBERD
La Quinta
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Speaking of fuzzy thinking, Mr. Warren has it backward. It is true that we rarely use 0 to count objects, but time is not an object. We do not “count” time, we measure it. “The length of a day is 24 hours”; “how long has she been gone?,” etc., etc. When we measure something, we never start at 1. A yardstick always starts at 0.
Numbers in the base 10 have 10 digits: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Notice where it starts.
He, and others, may celebrate the birth of the new millennium on its first birthday (2001) if they like, but I will celebrate its birth in the 0 year (2000). After all, I was zero years old when I was born.
JOHN A. PALMIERI
Beverly Hills