# President Modi of India appears to believe that the 21st century began on 1st Jan 2000 **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 24, 2017, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197 "2017-12-24T05:21:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/81 "2017-12-26T04:49:21Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Posit a future in which the nations of the world unanimously agree to a calendar reform that decrees that commencing at 00:00:01 GMT on the date of the upcoming winter solstice, the planet would begin the first year of the first century of the new reckoning system. > > That first year is going to be Year One, not year Zero. > > It is not unreasonable to insist that the current numbering system follows the same rules as the putative numbering system of this hypothetical future. > > It IS unreasonable to suggest that it does not. What would the hypothetical future people you’re talking about being dumb prove? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/82 "2017-12-26T05:45:06Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > I hate to dispute your math, but the decade from January 1, 1961 to December 31, 1970, was the _seventh_ decade of the 20th century. The first decade was from January 1, 1901 to December 31, 1910. > > Decade one, from 1901 to 1910 Decade _The First_, actually. And really, people, it’s the SDMB _of cours_e we’re going to be pedantic about how the masses are being asses. But yes, that is the core of the counting dispute, the calendar was fashioned around ordinal numbers, hence no year zero. To go by how Exiguus set it up, it’s Year Of The Lord the two thousand_ **th** _ and seventeen_ **th** _. Not coordinate 2017 on some sort of X axis. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/83 "2017-12-26T05:56:50Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Of course not. The decade we call “the sixties” is NOT perfectly coincident with the sixth decade of the 20thh century. It is merely that decade which, when the years are named aloud, require the speaker to say the syllables “six” and “tee,” consecutively, and in that order. > > By contrast, the sixth decade of the 20th century is that decade which began on January 1, 1961, and ended on December 31, 1970. > [@cochrane](#): > > I hate to dispute your math, but the decade from January 1, 1961 to December 31, 1970, was the _seventh_ decade of the 20th century. The first decade was from January 1, 1901 to December 31, 1910. > > Decade one, from 1901 to 1910 > Decade two, from 1911 to 1920 > Decade three, from 1921 to 1930 > Decade four, from 1931 to 1940 > Decade five, from 1941 to 1950 > Decade six, from 1951 to 1960 > Decade seven, from 1961 to 1970 > Decade eight, from 1971 to 1980 > Decade nine, from 1981 to 1990 > Decade ten, from 1991 to 2000 :smack: You’re absolutely correct. :smack::smack::smack: The rest of my post I stand by as written. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/84 "2017-12-26T05:59:11Z")
> [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser](#): > > What would the hypothetical future people you’re talking about being dumb prove? Be so kind as to point out the “dumb” thing they hypothetically do in my thought experiment. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/85 "2017-12-26T07:01:25Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Be so kind as to point out the “dumb” thing they hypothetically do in my thought experiment. Not having a zero, obviously. Hell, when the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, they started their own calendar with a Zero Year. Sure, not the nicest people to use as an example, but as murderous as they were, at least they knew their math. ---
**Author:** ![AI\_Proofreader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@AI\_Proofreader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AI_Proofreader)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/86 "2017-12-26T08:22:48Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Not only has the Common Era been specifically defined as a fixed point in time, but this has now been enshrined in an international standard, ISO 8601 (bolding mine):[ISO 8601] uses the Gregorian calendar, which serves as an international standard for civil use … ISO 8601 prescribes, as a minimum, a four-digit year [YYYY] to avoid the year 2000 problem. It therefore represents years from 0000 to 9999, **year 0000 being equal to 1 BC and all others AD**. > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO\_8601So](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601So) you may choose to adopt a personal view that on “the logic of of 0-999 first millennium, 1000-1999 second millennium and so on”, but this is clearly and manifestly wrong according to all internationally accepted definitions. But I’m sure you’ll get over it. 😉 Ah, we’re all so shortsighted… what in the world will humans do in the year 10,000 when every computer thinks it’s Year 0000 / 1 BCE? We need to get started on addressing the Y10K bug ASAP! …well, maybe sometime after the UNIX 2038 bug is addressed, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/87 "2017-12-26T08:38:22Z")
> [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser](#): > > Not having a zero, obviously. You are mistaken. > [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser](#): > > Hell, when the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, they started their own calendar with a Zero Year. > > Sure, not the nicest people to use as an example, but as murderous as they were, at least they knew their math. No evidence has been presented to suggest that they were wholly without mathematical knowledge. However, you yourself have just provided rock-solid proof that they didn’t know jack shit about assigning a numeric label to the discrete items that they were counting. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/88 "2017-12-26T09:21:34Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Mathematics (well, arithmetic). Personally, I think introducing actual science to this debate is an insult to science. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/89 "2017-12-26T09:46:50Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > You are mistaken. > > No evidence has been presented to suggest that they were wholly without mathematical knowledge. However, you yourself have just provided rock-solid proof that they didn’t know jack shit about assigning a numeric label to the discrete items that they were counting. Humbug. You can’t start counting a year until 364 days have passed, just like you wouldn’t count a car being built in a factory as a full car until it’s actually assembled… Enviado desde mi 5051X mediante Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/90 "2017-12-26T14:47:16Z")
[Cardinal numbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_number). [Ordinal numbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number). This is why you are 0 years old in your first year of life. The 60s is a cardinal measure. The 7th decade of the 20th century is an ordinal measure. The arguments of the “2000 was the start of the 3rd millennium” crowd are incredibly pathetic: Majority of people? Round numbers? Not knowing the difference between cardinals and ordinals? Who cares? All on a message board with a motto for fighting ignorance. Sheesh. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/91 "2017-12-26T17:31:46Z")
> [@SeniorCitizen007](#): > > [When is the beginning of the new millennium? Some say it is January 1, 2000 and others January 1, 2001? Who is correct? | Scientific American](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-is-the-beginning-of/) > > When is the beginning of the new millennium? Some say it is January 1, 2000 and others January 1, 2001? Who is correct? > [@](#): > > A 6th century scholar, Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Short), established the Gregorian calendar in A.D. 532 … \ Pope Gregory was born a thousand years after Dionysius Exiguus … I swear Lil’ Ed is the last copy-editor on the planet … c’mon, _SciAm_, clean up your act … \ ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/92 "2017-12-26T18:13:25Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Of course not. The decade we call “the sixties” is NOT perfectly coincident with the sixth decade of the 20thh century. It is merely that decade which, when the years are named aloud, require the speaker to say the syllables “six” and “tee,” consecutively, and in that order. > > By contrast, the sixth decade of the 20th century is that decade which began on January 1, 1961, and ended on December 31, 1970. Speak to Wolfpup, they will disagree with you. Apparently “the sixties” didn’t start until around 1963 or 64 and lasted in to the seventies (but they have yet to supply a definition for that period) So it appears that periods of time do have a social and cultural element to them. Which is why referring to “the 20th century” or “the third millennia” are most commonly thought of as referring to 1st Jan 1900 onwards and 1st Jan 2000 onwards. In conversation with the average person in the street you’d have be very specific if you want your preferred definition to be used. There is a difference between a colloquial “the 20th century” as commonly accepted and “the 20 century as counted from year 1” If I sent you to the supermarket to get me some vegetables because I want to make a salad and you came back without tomatoes, cucumbers or olives you would be technically correct in what you did but in a very real-world sense you’d be an idiot and I would have a sub-standard salad. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/93 "2017-12-26T19:20:12Z")
> [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser](#): > > I think that he means that for most of us non-religious types, the number 2000 is just the way we count years from an arbitrary point in time, and therefore have no problem with there being a year zero instead of a 1 b.c. I guess it’s tempting to try to pull religion (and proud non belief therein) into every topic, but it’s not relevant here. There is no year 0 on the Western calendar (now used everywhere, at least for some purposes). Putting one in would change the date of every event BC/BCE. Which of those you call it or what you believe religion-wise has nothing to do with it. What year the 21st century or current millennium started in is not a fact, it’s a convention. The more logical convention would be 1/1/2001. The overwhelming popular convention is 1/1/2000. In today’s society the latter wins, no contest. Back in say 1900 there was still more of a sense ‘ordinary people should know their place’ and such a convention was chosen by the more knowledgeable, hence more references to the 20th century starting in 1901\*. It’s a small example, but of a not so small phenomenon. And it’s a potentially important one even when the choice is of convention, which again I would distinguish from cases where most people are factually wrong about something, and definitely distinguish from matters of belief or opinion with no correct answer. \*admittedly the issue of computer programs designed to represent years with just two digits was also part of the significance of 2000, but I think social/cultural change was part of it too. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/94 "2017-12-26T19:33:42Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > [Cardinal numbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_number). > > [Ordinal numbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number). > > This is why you are 0 years old in your first year of life. True, but isn’t an infant’s age usually counted in months? Instead of saying he’s 0 years old, you’d say he’s three months old, or six months old. Even past a year old, people often say an infant is 14 months old or 18 months old. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/95 "2017-12-26T19:34:19Z")
> [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser](#): > > The Gregorian calendar, unless you are a Christian, is not a “fact”. Not in the sense of it being some sort of indisputable scientific fact. It’s a measuring system, and a flawed one at that. True, but we’re stuck with it, right? I mean, it’s what we use. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/96 "2017-12-26T19:41:25Z")
“Alexa, on what day was the start of the 21st century?” “Sorry, I don’t know that” “Alexa, on what date was the start of the new millenium?” “Sorry, I don’t know that” Fat lot of help she is! ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/97 "2017-12-26T20:04:10Z")
You should switch to Google Assistant. “Hey, Google, when did the 21st century start?” “Start date, January 1, 2001.” “Hey, Google, when did the new millenium start?” “Third millenium started on January 1, 2001, and ends on December 31, 3000.” ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/98 "2017-12-26T20:45:50Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > True, but we’re stuck with it, right? I mean, it’s what we use. It’s what many of us use, but it is hardly the only calendar that people use today. If you have a Mac, try changing the date and time settings to see a multitude of different names for what we call today. ---
**Author:** ![AI\_Proofreader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@AI\_Proofreader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AI_Proofreader)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2017, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/99 "2017-12-27T03:33:57Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > If I sent you to the supermarket to get me some vegetables because I want to make a salad and you came back without tomatoes, cucumbers or olives you would be technically correct in what you did but in a very real-world sense you’d be an idiot and I would have a sub-standard salad. I think you are my spirit animal. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2017, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197/100 "2017-12-27T10:31:42Z")
Interestingly, and sort of related - I am one of the few who had to deal with an _actual_ Millennium Bug - that is - an issue that manifest itself on 1st January 2001. In the dBase / xBase standard, the second byte in the file header is a number describing the number of years since the most recent turn of the century. Microsoft’s dBase driver just counts it as the number of years since 1900. Lazy programming I guess. Oddly, dBase could cope with anything between 0 and 100 (it really should have been 0 to 99 or 1 to 100), but just breaks when it hits 101 - which is what the Microsoft driver started producing on 1st Jan 2001. I was maintaining an Access DB that exported data to dBase III format (which in itself was all bad enough) - I had to write an awful hack that rewrote the second byte to standard inside the dBase file after Access had finished writing or updating it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-modi-of-india-appears-to-believe-that-the-21st-century-began-on-1st-jan-2000/805197.md?page=6)