Re: Ebisedian number system (I)

Christian Thalmann wrote:
> Not at all.  Just call the year in which Christ was born the year
> 0 AD = 0 BC, then we'd have no problem.  The year 100 BC would be
> -100 AD, and distances between the systems would be consistent.
Except that the concept of zero simply didn't exist at that time.  This
problem arises in any calendrical system that originated before the
concept of zero.  You have "The third year before Christ", "The second
year before Christ", "The first year before Christ", "The first year OF
Christ", and so on.  It has nothing to do with the religious origin.
It's just like the older system of counting "The Xth year of the reign
of Y".  There's no zeros in such a system.  What would the zeroth year
of the reign of so-and-so mean?

> What I've always found especially counterintuitive about the current
> system:  If the year 1 before Christ's birth is immediately followed
> by the year 1 after Christ's birth -- where is the year in which
> Christ was born?
1 BC, in theory.  Of course, they were several years off.

--
"There's no such thing as 'cool'.  Everyone's just a big dork or nerd,
you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." -
overheard
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42