The New Millennium Starts 2001
Simple facts, described for everyone (from
schoolgirl/-boy to professor)
--> Das Original dieser Seite wurde in Deutsch
verfasst.
This is the original version written in 1999,
which exists in an actualized and supplemented version for the year 2000.
Those who don't have special interest in this original text with its view
from 1999, should read the actual version. The
links
in this 1999 version may partly be obsolete.
At the first look, it seems clear that the next millennium starts at
the beginning of the year 2000, because the first digit changes from 1
to 2. Indeed, 2000 is a very special number, and it's easy to understand
that the beginning of the year 2000 will be celebrated with enthusiasm
and by computer experts with some tension. But one
year later, there will be cause for celebration again, because
the new millennium really starts on 1/1/2001.
We're gonna have two great celebrations!!!
The facts that lead to this statement are very simple:
When you count years, you begin with
the year 1. The first decade ends at the end of the year 10, the first
century at the end of the year 100, the first millennium at the end of
the year 1000. Thus the second millennium ends at the end of the year 2000.
That's it. If you're convinced already, you need not continue reading.
Except to collect responses for arguments that surely will come.
Here are possible objections from people who don't give up quickly.
All the following is intended to deal with such objections.
Overview
?
The word millennium stands for a big change in the counting of years. This
change happens when all four digits of the year get a new value by changing
from 1999 to 2000. There is no big change from 2000 to 2001.
Nearly all living people have always spoken the actual year as "nineteenhundred...".
From one moment to another, we will start to say "twothousand...". This
deep change should be emphasized and celebrated.
1
Who will not agree to that? For me, the change to the year 2000 is the
greatest occasion since 998 years for a gorgeous New Year's Eve party.
Many, many generations never had such a turn of the year!
We celebrate the change, but let's stay linguistically correct: We
celebrate the change of the first digit. Or the change of all 4 digits.
Or the change of the term for the hundreds. Too bad that there is no simple
word for it. The simple word is not "millennium". The
change that the word millennium implies is not identical with the change
of all digits.
If we talk about the millennium, we use a well defined word
that only makes sense if we relate it to our era. That leads us to the
beginning of the year 2001, the start of the 3rd millennium of our era.
Is that something very special? Need we celebrate it more than other
turns of the year? Everyone may decide that for himself. Many will celebrate
it as greatly as the year 2000. Now here we're back to our motto: We're
gonna have two
great celebrations!!!
?
If you start counting at the year 0, the third millennium will start with
the year 2000.
2
1582, the Gregorian
Calendar was created which defines the chronology still in use today.
Counting of the years "after the birth of Christ" (A.D.) was already established
at that time - it was defined in A.D. 525 by Dionysius Exiguus. Before
that, there was (besides others) the varronic era which started counting
from the foundation of Rome. A.D. 1 is equivalent to the varronic year
754. The varronic year 1 became 753 B.C., i.e. there
is no year 0, the year 1 B.C. being directly followed by A.D. 1.
However, this circumstance was disturbing for the astronomers in their
need for a continuously extendable time axis, so they invented (in contrast
to our common chronology) the astronomical chronology. And there you have
a year 0, which is equal to 1 B.C., there are even negative years, where
the year -1 is equal to 2 B.C. and so on. Though, it would be far-fetched
to say about the year 2000 enthusiasts that they all would use the astronomical
chronology. Before that, you would have to teach children at school that
Rome was founded in the year -752.
From the links below, you can see that the astronomers
are very well at home within the Gregorian Calendar and have come to the
right conclusions.
?
From the day on when someone celebrates his 20th birthday, you say he is
20 years old, until the next birthday comes. It should be the same with
the numbers of the years. I.e. on 1/1/2000 our era should be 2000 years
old and not only 1999.
There are two answers, one graphic and one
theoretical. Both have the same result.
Sorry for the length of the answers, but these
are the essentials of the "millennium question".
3a
When talking about the age of people, we mostly speak about e.g. the 19th
birthday
or say that someone is 19 years old. Rarely we talk about
someone being within the 20th year of his life. And who actually
realizes that the big 20th birthday only comes after the end (!)
of the 20th year of someone's life?
Just let's imagine that our era were a human being, with its birthday
always on January 1. The counting of years of our era would then be equal
to the
years of its life. The first year of its life was the year
1, because there was no year 0. After its end, on New Year's Day of the
year 2, was the 1st birthday of our era. Now it was 1 year old and had
begun the 2nd year of its life. And now we simply go 1998 years further.
New Year's Day of the year 2000 is its 1999th birthday. That means it is
1999 years old and has begun the 2000th year of its life. Thus, its big
2000th birthday will only come after the end of the 2000th year of its
life, that is on
1/1/2001.
Now we see clearly why we quickly come to wrong results when comparing
the counting of years of people's lives with the counting of years of our
era. The year of our era must only
be compared with the rarely mentioned (running) year of life
and not with the much more commonly used age in completed years.
Annotation: We must not stretch this imagination too wide. Today's
definition of our chronology includes that the New Year's Day always is
on January 1. Many centuries before, definitions were totally different.
Thus, when speaking historically of the year 1, we must not take January
1 as beginning of the year. Above, we did this only to find the right year
for the millennium. Because all people using our chronology will celebrate
the millennium on January 1 of a year, we need not quarrel about the day.
3b
When dealing with years, we have to distinguish between so-called cardinal
counting and ordinal counting.
Cardinal counting gives an amount of elements (1 element, 2 elements, 3
elements, ...), whereas the ordinal counting enumerates and thereby names
each of the elements (the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd, ... or element 1, element
2, element 3). Cardinal counting gives the value 0
if there is not yet one complete element, whereas the first incomplete
element already gets the ordinal number 1.
This difference of 1 persists up however high the number. That sounds very
theoretical, but in everyday life we unconciously use cardinal numbers
(c.n.) and ordinal numbers (o.n.):
For measurement of time, e.g.: During the 90th minute (o.n.) of a soccer
match, the stop-watch shows 89: ... (c.n.).
For age informations: The 20th year (o.n.) of someone's life begins
with his 19th birthday (literally: 19th anniversary of birth, o.n.) and
lasts until one day before his 20th birthday. During the whole 20th year
of someone's life, you say he is 19 years old (c.n.). Or you give more
exact informations and say e.g. 19 1/2 years (c.n.) or 19 years and 11
months (c.n.) or nearly 20 years old (c.n.). But you never would say he
were 20 years old as long as he lives within the 20th year of his life.
Our chronology was defined as ordinal counting
of years, months and days, and was formerly fully reflected
in our language when formally saying for example "in the 1400th year of
the Lord" (anno domini 1400). This accentuation
of the ordinal counting of years has got lost in the last centuries.
In former times as well as today, it seems to be difficult for people to
consider the difference of 1 when determining the number of passed years
(c.n.) out of the number of the year (o.n.), thus realizing that e.g. on
July 1, 2000 only about 1999.5 years of our era have passed. But everyone
realizes that on November 1 of a year only 10 months of that year have
passed - is it because the numbers are smaller?
?
On December 14, 1899 (!), the German Bundesrat decided that the 1/1/1900
had to be taken as the beginning of the 20th century. Thus its end as well
as the end of the 2nd millennium must be on December 31, 1999.
4
Already before the year 1700, people quarreled about when the new century
would begin. Before each turn of the century, there were some intense confrontations
between differing majorities. At the last turn of the century, nearly all
official fixings were made for 1/1/1901, except in Germany, what was caused
by a desire of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Ultimately, that was a redefinition of
the term "century", in a way which could not last for long. E.g. the (German)
dtv Brockhaus Lexikon writes about the term "century": „...
the 20th century began on January 1, 1901 and will finish on December 31,
2000.“ (translated)
Concerning the coming millennium, e.g. the
U.S.
government gives a statement referring to the U.S. Naval Observatory,
with the result 1/1/2001. The German Bundestag will not have to decide
about this question, because the Physikalisch-Technische
Bundesanstalt has already given clear statements, with the same result,
of course.
?
Today's knowledge says that Jesus Christ was born at least 2 years before
year 1. Those who want to celebrate the millennium at the end of 2000,
will be further in time from the real event.
5
Surely it's right to assume that the majority of those who enthusiastically
look forward to the new millennium, want to relate it to our era, not to
the exact day of the birth of Jesus Christ. Those who want to celebrate
the 2000th birthday of Jesus Christ will have to realize that the right
time for that has already passed. But even the newest information about
the birth year of Christ has a tolerance of more than one year and did
not lead to a redefinition of chronology in any country of the world.
?
If you talk about "the nineties", you mean the years 1990 through 1999.
Thus, the new decade starts in 2000, and the same applies to the new century
and the new millennium.
6
Of course, nobody would say that the nineties would comprise the years
1991 through 2000. But the conclusion that the nineties were identical
to a certain decade of our era (the 200th), would be taking a step
too far. The first decade of our era comprised the years 1 through 10,
the second the years 11 through 20, and so on as described above. So if
you said: "In the twenties of our era, Jesus Christ began healing people",
you would surely mean the years 20 through 29, because they all have a
2 at the decimal place and are all spoken "twenty-...". But the 3rd decade
of our era comprised the years 21 through 30. Thus, these are independent
expressions which - related to the beginning of our era - can not be identical.
Now that already hundreds of decades of our era have passed, it's just
understandable that the relation of a decade to our era is not made correctly
by any of us. A decade is a long period, but for a human being still easy
to survey, and normally there is no reason to relate it to the beginning
of our era. And so you correctly take the word "decade" as a synonym for
any continuous period of 10 years, e.g. we all surely celebrated "the new
decade" at the beginning of 1990. Why not? As long as nobody comes up with
the beginning of our era ...
But if not hundreds of millennia of our era have passed and we now
have this very special event that has to be widely and hugely celebrated
(because we can't experience it every couple of years), then we should
know very well when we celebrate what. And nobody will deny that the millenium
to be celebrated relates to the beginning of our era.
?
What will all the people do who already booked expensive voyages because
of the millennium? Economies will crash if all activities have to be deferred
by one year or people have the right to cancel their voyages.
7
It's surely right to assume that sellers as well as buyers of goods and
services related to the millennium really believed that the new millennium
would begin with the year 2000 (positive exceptions exist, e.g. Millennium
2001, Inc.). There are a multitude of possible rules to solve such
problematic cases without driving firms into ruin. Probably, many people
will celebrate the change of all digits (2000) with the expenditure that
was originally intended for the millennium. But nobody should raise a loan
just to celebrate the millennium (2001) with at least similar expenditure.
However, facts can't be removed by economic considerations.
?
It's all the dogmatism of boring know-alls! If the millennium comes only
in 2001, why does everybody talk about 2000?
8
There are many good reasons to talk about the year 2000 and to celebrate
it greatly (see above). And that - without some reflection - the word "millennium"
is taken as a synonym for it, is not a bad mistake, perhaps except for
historians and mathematicians, if any of them should use this word this
careless. If you know a historian or mathematician
(or similar professions), simply talk with her/him about this.
If you don't know one, a schoolgirl/-boy with interest for mathematics
might be enough. The facts are (see above) quite simple.
The main reason why little could be heard of these facts in the public
up to now, surely is that few people considered this subject important
enough to carry it to wider circles of people. This is supposed to change
in 1999.
We're gonna have two great celebrations!!!
!English
websites that give a correct view of the facts (there are German
sites, too):
-
Royal Greenwich Observatory, Information Leaflet No. 52: The
Year AD 2000.
-
Official statement of the U.S. government: When
is the Millennium?
-
U.S. Naval Observatory, subject: When
Is the New Millennium?
-
Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (Germany), subject: Gregorian
Calendar.
-
Munich Astro Archive, Astronomical Calendars, subject: Gregorian
Calendar.
-
Millennium Page of Billy
Enigmar Godfrey, a pioneer of the subject 1/1/2001, with links.
-
www.timeanddate.com, The
difference between the Millennium and year 2000.
-
Ian Chadwick, What's
so special about the year 2000? Very detailed and with many links.
-
2001 Campaign.
-
The Millennium Odyssey.
-
ASK MARILYN
column, Parade Magazine, December 22, 1996, subject: Year 2000.
-
Millennium 2001, Inc. offers clothing
with MillenniuM2001 logo.
-
www.timeanddate.com, Countdown
to the next Millennium.
By the way, in each encyclopedia that mentions an end date at the headword
"millennium" or "century", you will find the date December 31, 2000 and
not 1999.
Many thanks to Dr.
Arndt Brendecke (historian at the University of Munich and author of
the book "Die
Jahrhundertwenden. Eine Geschichte ihrer Wahrnehmung und Wirkung",
Campus Verlag 1999) for expert support during the completion of this page.
Many thanks to David Williams from Great Britain for corrections to
the English translation of the first version. This text is for all English
speaking people, so I left some Americanisms.
Feedback to this page is welcome
to the author, Walter Schittek:
Please understand that I can't reply to each mail because I'm very
busy within and without employment.