Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!unhd!ncf611 From: ncf611@uunet!unhd (Nicholas C Fitanides) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Happy New (Year|Decade)! Message-ID: <1990Jan2.163112.24877@uunet!unhd> Date: 2 Jan 90 16:31:12 GMT References: <9178@cbmvax.commodore.com> Reply-To: ncf611@unhd.UUCP (Nicholas C Fitanides) Organization: Computing Information Services, University of New Hampshire Lines: 32 In article bralick@cs.psu.edu (Will Bralick) writes: >In article <9178@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: >>Wow! I just noticed that it's the last day of both the year and the >>decade. > >I hate to contradict anyone :-), especially Dave, but ... >Much to the chagrin of C programmers everywhere, there was no >year 0 A.D., so we will have to wait 366 days to reread this >message. > >Happy New Year, anyway! > > >Regards, > >-- >Will Bralick | ... when princes think more of I've seen this argument before--and if you're not well-versed in discrete mathematics, this can be a confusing issue. It does not matter if there WAS a year 0 A.D. The calendar has been changed so many times since then, it does not really matter. The 80's can be said to end with the last year of the 80's. 1980 can be seen as the first year in the 80's. Furthermore, how do YOU know that there wasn't a year 0? Numeration systems are arbitrary, and our calendar system is even more arbitrary (redundant). If someone wants do declare the end of the 80's with the last of the 80's (i.e.: 1989), then so be it. It is 99% probable that there hasn't even been one thousand, nine hundred and eighty-nine years Anno Domini, so this argument is MOOT. I DO like to contradict others, and often myself--so if you've more to say, we'll take this off-line. -Nick (a.k.a. Superclam)