Please explain my confused me like I’m 5 (0r 4 or 6).

  • nudny ekscentryk@szmer.info
    0·
    7 months ago

    When you consider the time as a number line, years are not points at integers (which would in some way warrant a year 0), but rather periods between them. Year 1 is the period between 0 and 1, and before that was -1 to 0, or year -1. There is no year 0, because there isn’t anything between 0 and 0

    • jsomae@lemmy.ml
      0·
      7 months ago

      This explanation is unclear to me. Why do we choose the later of the two endpoints of the year for (0, 1) but the earlier of the two for (-1, 0)?

  • governorkeagan@lemdro.idEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    I’m no expert but I assume that the year Christ died would be “year zero” (assuming you’re talking about anno Domini (AD) and before Christ (BC)) since we started counting after that.

    EDIT: reading more on the topic I might be completely incorrect with my above statement. If someone else knows, please do correct me

    EDIT 2: I found this on Wikipedia which talks about a “year zero”