Re: The year dot (was: Ebisedian number system)

Nihil Sum wrote:
> Yes but there is a 0000 in the 24-hour clock. Wouldn't make sense if 0130 to
> 0230 was one hour, but 2330 to 0030 was 59 minutes, due to the lack of a
> "minute zero".
Well, 2400 for midnight would work just as well.  Every hour has a 00
minute.

At any rate, the 24-hour clock is a recent invention, made LONG after
the development of the concept of a number 0.  Look at the much older
and more traditional 12-hour clock.  That has no 0 hour.  It goes 1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12.  It has a zero minute,
but that just means exactly that hour.  2:00 is exactly the second
hour.  2:15 is the second hour plus fifteen minutes.

Why are some people seemingly incapable of realizing that the ancients
didn't have all of the same concepts as we do?

> More so if it's a positive-negative system, the years BC being "negative"
> and running in the opposite direction (number gets higher as you move back).
> Not having a year zero is odd.
Not really.  I'm 23.  I could state that I'm in my 24th year of life,
which is another way of looking at it.  I was born in 1978, so let's
look at years relative to my life:
8/30/2001-8/29/2002: The 24th year of my life
8/30/2000-8/29/2001: The 23rd year of my life
...
8/30/1979-8/29/1980: The 2nd year of my life
8/30/1978-8/29/1979: The 1st year of my life
8/30/1977-8/29/1978: The 1st year before my birth
8/30/1976-8/29/1977: The 2nd year before my birth

See, a zero would make no sense.  The zeroth year of my life?  What's
that mean?  Our calendar is based on the ancient practice of counting
years by the reign of a king.  Japan still uses that, at least in some
formal contexts, I'm not sure how much it's used.  This year, for
example, is the year Heisei 14, the 14th year of the reign of Heisei
(AKA Akihito).  The Romans used a similar system, but going from the
founding of their city, the year of its founding being the year 1.

Why SHOULD there be a year zero?  Especially considering that THERE WAS
NO CONCEPT OF A NUMBER ZERO at the time the calendar was created.  Even
the French Revolutionary Calendar, which was created long after the
number 0 was lacked a year 0.

> BTW, JC was born in about 4 BC wasn't he?
Somewhere between 6 and 4 BC is the usual estimate.  King Herod died in
4 BC, so he couldn't've been born after that point.

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