Does Anybody Ever Get This Right?

[RWT1405]

I don't NEED a link to know

0 = 0
1 = 1

and then understand 0 DOES NOT = 1

I also understand that a set of 10 STARTS at 1 and ENDS at 10; a second set then MUST start at 11 and END at 20; a third set MUST start at 21 and END at 30.

This is simple math. If YOU can't understand that, then YOU need to find more then a link. I don't have to prove anything from a "link". It really is that easy.

Instead of using a "link" (or computer), why don't you try your brain. Of course, that's the problem, people CAN'T think for themselves anymore.



My .02 FWIW YMMV

 

[jtr1962]

Minor point regarding 24 hour time:

The day starts at 00:00:00. When it's 00:00:01 then one second has elapsed. When it's 00:00:59 then 59 seconds have elapsed. So when it's 23:59:59 then 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds have elapsed. The next day starts at 00:00:00, which is exactly one second after 23:59:59. Adding one second to 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds does indeed give a 24 hour day. So the idea that not having 24:00 gives a 23:59:59 day is wrong. Like I said, 24:00 is just a convention used for convenience, when an event starts at midnight, and ends at exactly midnight 24 hours later. It prevents ambiguity.

And regarding the original topic, as far as I can tell 2001 AD - 2010 AD is a decade, and so is 2000 - 2009. However, 2000 AD - 2009 AD is NOT a decade, and neither is 2001 - 2010. If you use AD, then you're using the Gregorian calender which starts with year 1, meaning decades start with 1, and end with 0. If you don't use AD either before or after a year, then you're using astronomical notation, which starts with year 0, meaning decades begin with 0, and end with 9. As most of the world usually reports years without including the AD notation, then the common usage seems to be correct, as it's astronomical notation.

 

[was.lost.but.now.found]

Yes you are correct. 0 = 0, and 1 = 1.

You said sarcastically:

A set of 10 (a decade) does NOT go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10; it goes 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

thereby implying that a decade MUST start with XXX1.

There are 126 million pages found by Google with the search term 'decade'. Surely there is one link that says a decade must start with XXX1.

Link please.

 

[MCFLYFYTER]

Well, I see you are not acknowledging the existence 00:00, so I assume you understand this.

Merriam-Webster defines "decade" as:

1 : a group or set of 10: as a : a period of 10 years b : a division of the rosary that consists primarily of 10 Hail Marys
2 : a ratio of 10 to 1 :

order of magnitude

so according to this definition, the following years are a decade:
6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15

You keep referring to a "set of ten", so

Merriam-Webster defines "set" as:

1 : to cause to sit : place in or on a seat
2 a : to put (a fowl) on eggs to hatch them b : to put (eggs) for hatching under a fowl or into an incubator
3 : to place (oneself) in position to start running in a race
4 a : to place with care or deliberate purpose and with relative stability <set a ladder against the wall> <set a stone on the grave> b : transplant 1 <set seedlings> c (1) : to make (as a trap) ready to catch prey (2) : to fix (a hook) firmly into the jaw of a fish d : to put aside (as dough containing yeast) for fermenting
5 : to direct with fixed attention <set your mind to it>
6 a : to cause to assume a specified condition, relation, or occupation <slaves were set free> <set the house on fire> b : to cause the start of <set a fire>
7 a : to appoint or assign to an office or duty b : post, station
8 : to cause to assume a specified posture or position <set the door ajar>
9 a : to fix as a distinguishing imprint, sign, or appearance <the years have set their mark on him> b : affix c : apply <set a match to kindling>
10 : to fix or decide on as a time, limit, or regulation : prescribe <set a wedding day > <set the rules for the game>
11 a : to establish as the highest level or best performance <set a record for the half mile> b : to furnish as a pattern or model <set an example of generosity> c : to allot as a task <setting lessons for the children to work upon at home — Manchester Examiner>
12 a : to adjust (a device and especially a measuring device) to a desired position <set the alarm for 7:00> <set a thermostat at 68>; also : to adjust (as a clock) in conformity with a standard b : to restore to normal position or connection when dislocated or fractured <set a broken bone> c : to spread to the wind <set the sails>
13 a : to put in order for use <set a place for a guest> b : to make scenically ready for a performance <set the stage> c (1) : to arrange (type) for printing <set type by hand> (2) : to put into type or its equivalent (as on film) <set the first word in italic>
14 a : to put a fine edge on by grinding or honing <set a razor> b : to bend slightly the tooth points of (a saw) alternately in opposite directions c : to sink (the head of a nail) below the surface
15 : to fix in a desired position (as by heating or stretching)
16 : to arrange (hair) in a desired style by using implements (as curlers, rollers, or clips) and gels or lotions
17 a : to adorn with something affixed or infixed : stud, dot <clear sky set with stars> b : to fix (as a precious stone) in a border of metal : place in a setting c : to place in a specified literary or dramatic setting <a story set in Paris>
18 a : to hold something in regard or esteem at the rate of <sets a great deal by daily exercise> b : to place in a relative rank or category <set duty before pleasure> c : to fix at a certain amount <set bail at $500> d : value, rate <their promises were set at naught> e : to place as an estimate of worth <set a high value on life>
19 : to place in relation for comparison or balance <theory set against practice>
20 a : to direct to action b : to incite to attack or antagonism <war sets brother against brother>
21 a : to place by transporting <was set ashore on the island> b : to put in motion c : to put and fix in a direction <set our faces toward home once more> d of a dog : to point out the position of (game) by holding a fixed attitude
22 : to defeat (an opponent or a contract) in bridge
23 a : to fix firmly : make immobile : give rigid form or condition to <set her jaw in determination> b : to make unyielding or obstinate
24 : to cause to become firm or solid <set milk for cheese>
25 : to cause (as fruit or seed) to developintransitive verb 1 chiefly dialect : sit
2 : to be becoming : be suitable : fit <the coat sets well>
3 : to cover and warm eggs to hatch them
4 a : to affect one with or as if with weight <the pudding sets heavily on my stomach> b : to place oneself in position in preparation for an action (as running)
5 of a plant part : to undergo development usually as a result of pollination
6 a : to pass below the horizon : go down <the sun sets> b : to come to an end <this century sets with little mirth — Thomas Fuller>
7 : to apply oneself to some activity <set to work>
8 : to have a specified direction in motion : flow, tend <the wind was setting from Pine Hill to the farm — Esther Forbes>
9 of a dog : to indicate the position of game by crouching or pointing
10 : to dance face to face with another in a square dance <set to your partner and turn>
11 a : to become solid or thickened by chemical or physical alteration <the cement sets rapidly> b of a dye or color : to become permanent c of a bone : to become whole by growing together

I did not see any reference to "must start at 1" or anything close to that.
Therefore it is reasonable to believe that "6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15" IS A DECADE.

 

[45/70]

.....can anyone provide any links from a valid authoritative source that says a 'decade' must start in a year ending in '1' (i.e. 2011)?

From the U.S. Naval Observatory site, as applies to centuries and millennia.

"Years of the Gregorian calendar, which is currently in use today, are counted from AD 1. Thus, the 1st century comprised the years AD 1 through AD 100. The second century began with AD 101 and continued through AD 200. By extrapolation we find that the 20th century comprises the years AD 1901-2000. Therefore, the 21st century began with 1 January 2001 and will continue through 31 December 2100.


Similarly, the 1st millennium comprised the years AD 1-1000. The 2nd millennium comprises the years AD 1001-2000. The 3rd millennium began with AD 2001 and will continue through AD 3000."

There's some other interesting info in this article, as well.

The general consensus from my research in the past, is that the scientific community looks at year 1 through year 1000 as being the first millennium. The "societal" (my new word for the month by the way 🙂, which by my own definition means "common B.S.") viewpoint is that either year 0 through year 999 is correct, or year 1 through year 999. They can't seem to make up their mind, as is also evident in this thread. 🙂 In either event, the first proposition assumes a year 0, which doesn't exist, and in the second proposition, that the first millennium only contained 999 years, which would disqualify this period as being a "millennium", by definition.

There's never going to be any "winner" here, as I've been contesting this since 2000-2001. Personally, I'm sticking with the scientific viewpoint, as I said before, "It is what it is". No amount of rule bending is going to convince me otherwise. 🙂

Dave

 

[was.lost.but.now.found]

There's never going to be any "winner" here, as I've been contesting this since 2000-2001. Personally, I'm sticking with the scientific viewpoint, as I said before, "It is what it is". No amount of rule bending is going to convince me otherwise. 🙂

Dave

This has been my point since the beginning, in that your definition applies to centuries and millenia, I've never disputed how they are counted. The discussion is about a decade.

 

[45/70]

This has been my point since the beginning, in that your definition applies to centuries and millenia, I've never disputed how they are counted. The discussion is about a decade.

Unless you're going to make an attempt at 'rule bending", the same applies to decades, as they are merely smaller parts of centuries and millennia, in relation to the calendar.

Dave

 

[was.lost.but.now.found]

Unless you're going to make an attempt at 'rule bending", the same applies to decades, as they are merely smaller parts of centuries and millennia, in relation to the calendar.

Dave

Who says the same applies? In the heirarchy of Unites States Government, a state government is a substructure of the US Federal Gov't, but that does not mean they have the same laws.

 

[45/70]

Who says the same applies?

Let me get this straight. You're suggesting that counting from 1-10, is somehow done differently than counting from 1-100, or 1-1000?

In the heirarchy of Unites States Government, a state government is a substructure of the US Federal Gov't, but that does not mean they have the same laws.

I don't think that's quite right either. State governments are separate entities from the Federal government, but that's a topic for another discussion. 🙂

Dave

 

[was.lost.but.now.found]

Let me get this straight. You're suggesting that counting from 1-10, is somehow done differently than counting from 1-100, or 1-1000?
Dave

I'm guilty as charged for talking in circles and losing focus; it's my biggest weakness.

A decade is 10 consecutive years. That's it. Any ten years you want it to be. It can be 1999 through 2008.

Let me try to summarize the last few days of my posts. You say a decade must be XXX1 through XXX0, right? So you are saying:

The New York Times is wrong:

http://submit.nytimes.com/documenting-the-decade

Time Magazine is wrong:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1942834,00.html

The BBC is wrong:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8400905.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8406898.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/chrischarles/2009/12/quotes_of_the_decade_part_ii.html

Oxford Dictionary is wrong:

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/decade?view=uk

Dictionary.com is wrong:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/decade

Mirriam-Webster is wrong:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/decade

NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology - the very keeper of the official time for the United States) is wrong:

http://www.nist.gov/msel/polymers/throughput_052009.cfm

http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/photoncs/html/table.html

Is that what you are really trying to say?

 

[45/70]

Is that what you are really trying to say?

From a scientific viewpoint, yes, absolutely! 🙂

Dave

 

[was.lost.but.now.found]

From a scientific viewpoint, yes, absolutely! 🙂

Dave

I do not claim to be a scientist nor do I claim to be able to adequately debate scientific matters. I will let you speak for yourself.

I will however say that this reference I gave http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/photoncs/html/table.html which is sourced from here: http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/photoncs/html/table.html were written by scientists🙂🙂.

 

[45/70]

I do not claim to be a scientist nor do I claim to be able to adequately debate scientific matters.

Long ago, most people (the "societal" folks😀) in the known world thought that the world was flat. At this time however, there was scientific evidence that the world was actually round, although not all scientists agreed.

You don't have to be a scientist to look at something from a scientific viewpoint. Leif Erikson and Christopher Columbus weren't scientists.

I will let you speak for yourself.

Thanks. I appreciate that, I really do! 🙂

I will however say that this reference I gave.....

That particular table contains a so called "societal" decade, as do some of the other links you gave. Not too sure about the 1990-1994 reference though, technically speaking, that can't be a decade. So much for scientists.:nana:

Yes, any ten year period can be considered a decade. I do not think however, that the people involved with the article I linked to in my first post had that in mind. Rather I think they are attempting to relate to a calendar decade (ie. decade/century/millennium), in which case, from the scientific viewpoint, they are a year off. 🙂

Dave

 

[jtr1962]

There's never going to be any "winner" here, as I've been contesting this since 2000-2001. Personally, I'm sticking with the scientific viewpoint, as I said before, "It is what it is". No amount of rule bending is going to convince me otherwise. 🙂

But you're already bending the rule when you say things like this:

The general consensus from my research in the past, is that the scientific community looks at year 1 through year 1000 as being the first millennium.

Remember that unless the year has AD either before or after it then it is considered to be in astronomical notation if you want to strictly play by the rules. So that pretty much means most of the references to years I see are in astronomical notation, including what you wrote above. It doesn't matter whether the author intended them to be or not. Fact is, if there isn't an AD following or leading the year, then technically it is in astronomical notation. AD is never implicitly assumed ( you do know what happens when you assume? ), it MUST be written. And as I've already mentioned several times, astronomical notation contains a year zero. So that means decades, centuries, and millenia end in 9 if the year is written in astronomical notation. Amazing what a difference leaving out the letters AD makes, doesn't it? Remember that if we all want to stick to rules here, then we can't simply ignore the ones which don't support our position.

Of course, that also means I'll gladly support the idea that decades begin with 1 and end with 0 if the AD notation is used somewhere. 😗 Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case in the article you originally linked to, so it seems they're right after all. :nana: Even the date the article was written on is in astronomical notation.

So can we all finally agree that the second decade of the 21st century began on January 1, 2010, and will also begin on January 1, 2011 AD. It just depends upon which system you're using.

 

[45/70]

But you're already bending the rule.....

OK, ya got me there, jtr. Unfortunately, all of the Georgian calendars that I have make no mention of A.D., and it's true, I'm not used to using the A.D notation. When I do, I put it after the year, and I believe it's actually supposed to precede the year. :candle:

So can we all finally agree that the second decade of the 21st century began on January 1, 2010, and will also begin on January 1, 2011 AD. It just depends upon which system you're using.

I've always been told that anything is possible. 🙂

Dave

 

[Launch Mini]

I'm confused and am going to bed soon.
I need to get this straight,
I am about to count sheep, I only have 10 to count, so is the first one really 0, so I go
0, 1, 2,..... I don't think so
In my sheep world, my deca of sheep will be...
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,9, 10 zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

[LuxLuthor]

Summary of this thread so far:

Religion > Science

Good luck with that.

 

[TorchBoy]

The idea of two zero years would make even less sense than just accepting the inconsistency on both sides of zero.

Do you realise you'd be dooming people to figuring out how 2010 could actually be the 2011th year? People have enough trouble at the moment figuring out that most of the years of the 21st century start with 20, not 21, without your added confusion.

And now I finally have a ready answer for the next person who says the 21st century started on January 1, 2001. Unless they stick AD in there someplace, they're technically wrong!

But if they count like you do they'd call it the 20th century and the 2nd millennium, so they'd definitely think it was wrong.

As for these decade things, I thought we already agreed that a decade is ten years, whatever year it might start.

Link please.

Don't be lazy. Read the thread.

BTW 45/70, the argument in Christopher Columbus' wasn't the shape of the planet; it was how long the trip would take. CC thought it would take 3 months, and his opposition thought it would take a year. It took a year.

 

[TorchBoy]

As most of the world usually reports years without including the AD notation, then the common usage seems to be correct, as it's astronomical notation.

Most people commonly write years using two digits, without even an apostrophe. That doesn't mean they're not using the Gregorian calendar; they're just using a convenient way of referring to it. So you could actually only tell if someone was really using astronomical notation if they wrote a year <1000 with a preceding zero. I can confidently state that very few people would, therefore I am also confident most people are not using astromical notation. :nana:

This has been my point since the beginning, in that your definition applies to centuries and millenia, I've never disputed how they are counted. The discussion is about a decade.

Exactly the same counting rules apply.

Oh. 45/70 already pointed that out. What he said. 1-10, 1-100, 1-1000.

NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology - the very keeper of the official time for the United States) is wrong:
...
http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/photoncs/html/table.html

Is that what you are really trying to say?

Hm, let's see...

Decade
...
1990-1994

Yes, they're wrong.

:hahaha: NIST.

 

[shuter]

There are lots of confusing theories given here and I have not read every one but here's my two cents.

Counting from the moment determined to be A.D. is point zero, but it is considered year one, all year long. Year one ends at midnight December 31st as all years do. Year 10 (the first decade) ends at midnight of the 10th year, 10A.D. There is no missing time. We are currently in year 2010 all year. 2010 will end as all years do, on midnight December 31st.

The counting is the same for centuries and millenniums. The thing to remember is that one second after midnight December 31st starts the new year and we live that new year all year long. Seems straight forward enough to me.