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Blogs > saturn1019 > My Blog

NO!!!! 2020 is NOT the beginning of a new decade!  

saturn1019 64M
8 posts
12/30/2019 5:09 pm
NO!!!! 2020 is NOT the beginning of a new decade!

I have been seeing it everywhere. The proclamations that we will start a new year and a new decade in 2020. Sorry folks, but no, we aren't. This is a remarkable demonstration of historical and mathematical ignorance.

We mark the beginning of the common era with the year 1 A.D. It was thus established almost arbitrarily, based upon and errant calculation of the birth year of Jesus. I discuss that particular piece of misinformation at length in another essay posted here, but Jesus, if he existed at all, was not born on 1 A.D. However, that errant date has been the cornerstone of our modern calendar.

The old era, with dates we generally refer to as either B.C. (before Christ) or B.C.E. (before the common era), ends with 1 B.C. The curious question arises, how did people track time in those days? After all, nobody in 9 B.C. knew when the errant calculation of the birth of Jesus would be offered.

I won't go into that at length here. Suffice it to say, the dominant power in the world in the late years before the common era and for a few centuries after was the Roman Empire, and dates were based on the time since the founding of Rome. So the present system didn't come into use until about 5 centuries into the common era, and it some parts of the world it took considerably longer.

So, the time before the common era ended with 1 B.C., and the first year of the common era was 1 A.D. There was never a year 0. Consequently, the end of the first decade of the common era was A.D. The second decade began in A.D. Thus, the end of the first century was 0 A.D. and the second century of the common era began in 1 A.D.

We've never repeated a year, so nothing has changed. The final year of the 20th century was the year 2000, and the first year of the 21st century was 2001. Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke were well aware of that when they set their fictional space odyssey in 2001.

So NO folks, don't be wishing anyone a happy new decade until next year....

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