Last person born in the 1800s is not lpbi the 19th century

[Valteron]

Centuries are designated with ordinal numbers (fourth, fifth, 20th), and individual years are designated with cardinal numbers (45, 1492, 2016).

The division into BC and AD is purely historical and arbitrary. Jesus was not even born in 1 AD. We now recognize that Christ was born about four years Before Christ. But as long as we have a starting base for our years and centuries, I don’t care if it is the birth date of Christ or Cleopatra or Jack the Ripper.

What seems to throw people is that years like 1900 are the LAST year of the 19th century, and 1901 is the first year of the 20th century, with 2000 being the last year of the century that began in 1901.

Also confusing is that every century seems to have the wrong ordinal number. 1939 is part of the 20th century and Columbus sailed in 1492,so he sailed in the 15th century.

This is not just convention. It based on the reality of numbers.

Think about it like this. Imagine I am paying you $20. But I am doing it all in pennies, so I am giving you 2000 pennies. And every penny has a number from 1 to 2000 painted on it.

I start giving you the first dollar (the first century in other words). I begin with penny 1 and keep giving you the pennies one at at time. When have I given you the first dollar? When I give you penny 99? NOOOO! When I give you penny 100. So penny 100 belongs in the first dollar, right?

Now I start giving you the second dollar. The first penny of the second dollar is penny 101. The last penny of the second dollar (i.e. the second century)

So we just keep going like this. Finally I give you penny 1900. It is the last penny of the 19th dollar (the 19th century).

And finally the last dollar. It begins with penny 1901, and ends with… penny 2000, the last penny of the 20th dollar (20th century).

Does that make more sense?

[Valteron]

@Little_Nemo

Exactly. Some people act like a century is scientific fact. A century is just a social custom. So if the popular consensus is that a new century began on January 1, 1900 then it did and the pedantic minority has to accept it.

Arguing that a century really begins on 1901 or 2001 is like arguing that a week is really six days long and people only think it’s seven days long.

You are right in saying that the division into bunches of 100 years is customary, but it is based on the fact that we use 10 digits to count (0-9). It does not have to be this way. The Babylonians used a numbering system with 12 digits. You could have one based on 7 if you wanted.

But as long as we DO have 10 digits, 100 is the point at which the numbering system goes to 3 digits. So dividing years into bunches of 100 is logical, not just a whim. I suppose we COULD divide them into bunches of 500 years, but 100 seems more practical.

But if you admit that 100-year segments is the way to go, you have to have a way of naming the bunches of 100 years. So the years 1 to 100 are the first century, the years 101 to 200 are the second, etc. Right up to the years 1901 to 2000 which are the 20th century. Which confuses a lot of people when they see that a year like 1776 was the 18th century. But what else could you call it? The year 1776 was part of the eighteenth bundle of 100 years!

[Bryan_Ekers]

What if someone had been born in 1899.9999999… ?

[Valteron]

@Bryan_Ekers

What if someone had been born in 1899.9999999… ?

I assume you are joking, Bryan, but anyone born on or before midnight, December 31, 1900 is born in the 19th century. Anyone born after midnight that day is born Jan. 1, 1901, the first day of the 20th century. One of the most violent and lamentable centuries in human history, but what the hell!

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Valteron

Centuries are designated with ordinal numbers (fourth, fifth, 20th), and individual years are designated with cardinal numbers (45, 1492, 2016).

Good grief, Valteron, we know all this. I teach this stuff to my third graders, along with teaching them why we call the 1800s the nineteenth century. It’s not that I don’t know it, it’s that I think it’s a pedantic and unnecessary tradition. What would happen, what would be the terrible ramifications, if we called the year 1900 the first year of the 1900s, of the twentieth century?

For that matter, hell, what would be the terrible ramifications if we went full-blown reasonable, as Cadfael sarcastically suggests we do, and call the years 1900-1999 the nineteenth century? Sure, it’d require a social adjustment, but once we did that, so what?

The point is that this may have some numerical sense a change to which would confuse a computer, but we’re not computers. The way in which the majority of people talk involves placing the year 2000 at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and there’s nothing genuinely wrong with that.

[Baker]

To the OP: I know what you are saying. But it’s kind of "Know it all " to assume that because the big parties were held on 12/31/1999, that those celebrating are stupid. It was that turnover of the numbers that was fun and exciting.

Probably the only time in my life I will have bought a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne. And it was my forty-five birthday! And just eight days after I signed up for a certain message board, heh, heh. All together a very good year.

[Little_Nemo]

@Valteron

You are right in saying that the division into bunches of 100 years is customary, but it is based on the fact that we use 10 digits to count (0-9). It does not have to be this way. The Babylonians used a numbering system with 12 digits. You could have one based on 7 if you wanted.

But as long as we DO have 10 digits, 100 is the point at which the numbering system goes to 3 digits. So dividing years into bunches of 100 is logical, not just a whim. I suppose we COULD divide them into bunches of 500 years, but 100 seems more practical.

But if you admit that 100-year segments is the way to go, you have to have a way of naming the bunches of 100 years. So the years 1 to 100 are the first century, the years 101 to 200 are the second, etc. Right up to the years 1901 to 2000 which are the 20th century. Which confuses a lot of people when they see that a year like 1776 was the 18th century. But what else could you call it? The year 1776 was part of the eighteenth bundle of 100 years!

Years customarily have 365 days. But some of them have 366 days.

Same thing with centuries. If we want to arbitrarily say the First Century only had ninety-nine years in it, we can do it. Shortening a century isn’t unprecedented; both the Sixteenth and the Eighteenth Centuries were shorter than the standard length, depending on where you lived. But you don’t see anyone claiming the new year starts on January 12.

Or March 12. Because if you want to go by old calendars, you’ll see that the new year starts in March not January. Anyone who’s going to insist we have to count off the days, should be arguing that the Twenty-First Century began on March 12, 2001.

[septimus]

I’ll be laughed at and called innumerate by the pedants, but I’ve always thought that the insistence that “the 19th century” and “the 1800’s” refer to two different 100-year periods is just absurd, almost anal-retentive, pedantry.

If it’s so useful to have two different words, one meaning 1800 through 1899, and the other meaning 1801 through 1900, why not have another 98 words, one meaning 1814 through 1913, and so on?

But but but … they argue, aren’t you worried that the 1st century would have only 99 years? No, I’m not worried at all, for several reasons, most of which were pointed out by others in the thread:

• In a sense there was no 1st century! The Anno Domini calendar wasn’t devised until four centuries after Jesus had [del]been dead and buried[/del] risen to sit on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
• Renumber the year before 1 A.D. to be 0 A.D. if that floats your boat. The 1 A.D. is arbitrary anyway — scholars agree that 4 B.C. is a better estimate of Jesus’ birth. (Better yet would be to have 1 B.C. be the year before 0 A.D. but that ship has already sailed.)

Wasn’t a major reason that the Anno Domini calendar caught on an order of Charlemagne to celebrate his auspicious coronation by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day, 800? (What New Year’s Day did the Franks recognize anyway; i.e. when did 801 A.D. begin?)

[Little_Nemo]

@septimus

Wasn’t a major reason that the Anno Domini calendar caught on an order of Charlemagne to celebrate his auspicious coronation by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day, 800? (What New Year’s Day did the Franks recognize anyway; i.e. when did 801 A.D. begin?)

Charlemagne probably like the coincidence that he was crowned Emperor in the year 800 but it doesn’t appear to have been the origin for his support of the Anno Domini system. He had already been using it when he was “merely” King of the Franks.

[ftg]

@Little_Nemo

Arguing that a century really begins on 1901 or 2001 is like arguing that a week is really six days long and people only think it’s seven days long.

Fun fact: The Romans (among others) considered a week to be 8 days long. Even though it was only 7, like for us, because they used inclusive counting. Which is why an Octave is sort of 8 notes despite seemingly being 7 to normal people.

Anyway: Getting Math wrong on one thing leads to getting Math wrong on other things which leads to really Bad Things. Either you get it all right or you go home.

As explained: ordinals vs. cardinals. How old are you during your tenth year of life? If we start saying 10 instead of 9, then the ordinal vs. cardinal system breaks down. People start programming computers wrong and more Martian space probes will be lost.

The fact that a lot of people are wrong means we have work to do. Look at creationists, anti-vaxxers, etc. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate.

[Channing_Idaho_Banks]

People are dumb enough, they’ll probably change this whole century naming thing eventually to make it easier.

[doreen]

@ftg

Fun fact: The Romans (among others) considered a week to be 8 days long. Even though it was only 7, like for us, because they used inclusive counting.

I’m confused -

Sun day 1
Mon day 2
Tues day 3
Wed day 4
Thur day 5
Fri day 6
Sat day 7

The week is still 7 days long , because the Sunday that is day 8 is the beginning of the next week. I think you’re talking about a difference in what “7 days from today” means.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Channing_Idaho_Banks

People are dumb enough, they’ll probably change this whole century naming thing eventually to make it easier.

If only people were smarter, and clung to old pedantic traditions in order to make things more confusing!

[Fear_the_Turtle]

Just pretend the 1st year of the 1st century ended on 1 AD instead of beginning on 1 AD. So the year from Jan 1, 0001 BC to Jan 1, 0001 AD would basically become year 0 and the 1st century now has 100 years. Of course now the last century of the BC era now only has 99 years, but I can live with that (plus how often does it come up!).