Normal arithmetic counts from negative numbers through zero to positive numbers, e.g. -2, -1, 0, -1, =2, etc. But for some reason years from BC through to AD do not have a zero year. It goes 2BC. 1BC, 1AD, 2AD, etc. Why is this? Was the inventor of the AD system simply a bad mathematician?

Baloo55th

As the inventor of the AD/BC (or CE/BCE as I use it) system lived around 300 CE, he would have probably not come across the concept of 0 in counting. Roman numbers were still current in Western Europe. So-called Arabic numbers (1,2,3,4, etc) only came in after the Islamic forces had spread over so much of Northern Africa and into Spain. (They are actually borrowed into Arabic use from India.) It's something of an academic point, as the people who were living in 1 BC (1 BCE) didn't know that anyway. They were living in 753 AUC if they were in the Roman Empire. The inventor of the system, I suppose, was the monk who decided that Jesus had been born in what became 1 AD (1 CE). He got it wrong, but it wasn't too bad an attempt, considering what he had to work with. Mathematician, no he wasn't one of those at all! Anyway, there was the Year Dot, which occurred between 2400 hours on December 31st 1 BCE and 0000 hours on January 1st, 1 CE.... Feb 19 06, 12:19 PM

mementoflash

AD stands for "In the year of our Lord" so 1 AD is the year that Christ is born, the year just prior to Christ's birth would be 1 BC "Before Christ". Hence there is no need for a Zero Year. Baloo55th is correct, the caculations are a little less then accurate, but impressive considering the time they were determined. Feb 19 06, 1:06 PM

davejacobs

Without a year zero though, calculations of periods which span the BC/AD divide are a bit out. Normally you would subtract the earlier from the later date to get the difference, but when you do that for say 3 BC to 5 AD, you get (+5 - -3) or 8, whereas there are actually only 7 years between them. It's like calculating the distance between a point 3 miles of where you are to a point 5 miles west. There is a mile zero in this case, and it doesn't work to say I don't need a mile zero because I never go east, or because I live here. Cheers, DaveJ Feb 19 06, 1:23 PM

aussiebaby16

its impossible to have the year 0, once you get to 1bc u'd have to start counting backwards in months so you have 11moths BC 10months BC etc then when you get to the day christ was born you start going forwards again 1 month Ad 2 months Ad etc..but seeing how that would get a little confusing its eaisier just to skip the whole idea of having the in between Feb 19 06, 5:37 PM

Baloo55th

In case anyone's confused, AD and BC are specifically Christian terms meaning Anno Domini (as flash says, Year of the Lord) and BC being Before Christ. As much of the world isn't Christian, but as there are advantages in numbering years one one system only, the terms CE and BCE are increasingly used. CE means Common Era (or Current Era), and BCE means Before Common Era (or Before Current Era). The numbers are the same - it just makes life more comfortable for those of us who follow different paths. Feb 20 06, 5:45 AM

Arpeggionist

Amen to that. Feb 20 06, 5:49 AM

mementoflash

Yet, I knew a Non-Christian who told me that BCE and CE could jokingly be refered to as the "Current Error"! Feb 20 06, 7:28 AM

davejacobs

There is a fundamental difference between things that can be counted, and things that have to be measured in some way. Examples of the former are, say, people, trees, books, messages... Examples of the second are distance, volume, temperature... I think most physicists would say that time is a measurable quantity, rather than a countable one. For instance, I was zero years old for a while before I became one year old, and so on. While I was under one year old, I was certainly not minus one year old! It appears that theologians have a different view of time, and it is to them something to be counted. Interestingly we have different words for small quantities; we say (if we are purists) 'less than' for measurable things, and 'fewer than' for countable things. We do not for some reason make the same distinction for greater than. 'More than' seems to cover both cases. Cheers, DaveJ Feb 20 06, 7:53 AM

Baloo55th

You can only be zero years old at the actual moment of birth. After that your age increases. 0 years, so many months, so many days, up to the first birthday - which is, of course, the first anniversary of your birthday. Before it, you are in your first year, not your zeroth year. (No word for that, is there?). As to the CE/BCE divide point - it's not quite the same as the 0 point in numbers. The BCE numbers aren't negative years like the pounds in an overdrawn account are. It's two separate systems, back to back. Both positive. It's interesting that we never hear of something like this in other counting systems. I suppose to the Romans nothing of real interest happened before 1 AUC, and the Islamic people didn't bother counting before Mohammed's Hegira. Or do they? Their dates are referred to in English usage as AH (Anno Hegira - a mix of Latin and Arabic). Do they have BH dates? Feb 20 06, 12:26 PM

xfacilitatorx

Simply put. Year 1, if it were year 0, would make year one actually year 2 etc. Feb 22 06, 10:18 PM

xfacilitatorx

We are presently in 2006 yet only 2005 years have elapsed. On 31December2006 at Midnight we will have completed 2006 years of the Anos Domini Counting System (Gregorian). One minute later we will be in 2007 but only completed 2006 years. So if year 1 were year 0 we would be way behind. In mathematics 0, a whole number, does not have a "true" value. If it did the difference between +1 and -1 would be 3. Feb 22 06, 10:23 PM

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Do Muslim countries use AD and BC when writing dates? We unthinkingly use the abbreviations AD and BC which have always it seems gone together. So why is AD a Latin abbreviation (Anno Domini) while BC is English (Before Christ) - or is it? How many days lie between Jan. first, 1 BC and Jan first, 1 AD? Since AD stands for Latin initals, does BC stand for Latin also? Why would one be in Latin and the other in English?

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