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0 points_kst_5y ago0 comments

Speaking even more pedantically, a new decade is starting right now ... and here comes another one.

The 2020s start 2020-01-01 (just as the century called "the 1900s" started 1900-01-01).

The 21st century started 2001-01-01.

The 203rd decade starts 2021-01-01 -- but nobody talks about the "203rd decade". That's the difference in terminology between decades and centuries; we don't refer to decades by their ordinal numbers.

Yes, it's confusing and inconsistent. If only Dionysius Exiguus had known about zero.

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tim3335y ago

Continuing the pedantalization escalation the 21st century started 2001-01-01 if you follow the Gregorian calendar "named after Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in October 1582"

However if you are not fussed about pope Greg and then and go with ISO 8601 or common usage it started 2000-01-01.

dragonwriter5y ago

> Continuing the pedantalization escalation the 21st century started 2001-01-01 if you follow the Gregorian calendar "named after Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in October 1582"

In the same spirit of pedantry:

Well, no, Gregory is beside the point; if you are referring to Anno Domini dates, the 21st Century (and Second Millennium) began on the first day of the year A.D. 2001, whether or not you prefer the Gregorian Calendar.

Preference for the Gregorian Calendar or not will affect when you believe A.D. 2001 started, though.

_kst_OP5y ago

And the transition from Julian to Gregorian just changed the leap year rules. It didn't change the fact that there's no year 0. The 1st Century began in the year 1.

I don't believe anything in ISO 8601 refers to the century starting 2000-01-01 as "the 21st century" (though apparently it does, in some contexts, allow "20" to refer to the century that started on that date).

The century called "the 1900s" overlaps with the 20th century for 99 of 100 years.

zajio1am5y ago

> And the transition from Julian to Gregorian just changed the leap year rules. It didn't change the fact that there's no year 0.

It is not issue of Julian vs Gregorian date, but the issue that ISO 8601 uses different conventions. Traditionally, there were two disjoint timelines (AD/CE and BC/BCE), both starting at year 1. Within these conventions, it make sense that first century is 1-100 CE, second century 101-200 CE and so on.

ISO 8601 instead uses astronomical year numbering ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_year_numbering ), which has signed integer year numbers including year 0. Therefore, there is no beginning of timeline and most natural way how to define centuries by div 100, e.g. years 0-99 is century 0, and so on.

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