There were four primary units of time in the ancient world; the hour, the day, the month, and the year. As the ancients were unaware of the number 0, each of these units of time began with the number 1.

The hours of the day in ancient Rome did not correlate exactly with modern hours. However, there were then as now 12 hours during the day and another 12 hours during the night. The first hour of the day was numbered 1. The last hour was numbered 12. The night then began with the hour 1, and ended with the hour 12. The month began with day 1, and ended with day 28, 29, 30, or 31, depending on the month. The year began with month 1, and ended with month 12. Years were counted from year 1, which among ancient cultures represented the first year of the reign of a king or a dynasty or a government, and were counted until the king died, or until the dynasty or the government fell.

Ancient Units Of Time

In modern times, since the invention of the number 0 and the adoption of Arabic numerals, the units of time have changed. There are two exceptions to this, the days of the month and the months of the year. These are still counted as they have been since ancient times. The reason why these have not changed is that there has never been an opportunity to change them. The months and the days used to represent important religious occurrences. The first month of the year, January, was important in a way that the last month of the year, December, was not and vice versa. Together with the days of the month, these used to mark holy days, with the two words holy and days now combined to form the word holidays. Still today, people have become accustomed to holidays falling on a certain day of the year, and, certainly for religious holidays, it would be difficult to induce people to change these to other dates of the year.

The other modern units of time serve more as a series of placeholders than they do significantly different points in time. For example, each hour of the day no longer has a special significance. People recognize each hour in relation to the other hours, as a continuous series throughout the day, and not as numbers that are important in and of themselves for some religious service.

Therefore, the counting of modern units of time has evolved to follow the form of the modern arithmetic counting system. Seconds are the divisions of a minute. Each minute has 60 seconds. As each second is basically no different from each of the other seconds of the minute, each number acts functionally as no more than a placeholder. The 60 seconds of a minute are not counted 1 through 60, but 0 through 59. In the same way, each hour has 60 minutes, and these are numbered 0 through 59. 8:00:00 (8 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds) is considered the beginning of the hour, and not the end of the previous hour.

The hours of the day no longer have their ancient meanings. The day now begins at midnight. It might be expected that the hours would also be renumbered, from 0 to 11. However, the subdivisions of the solar unit of the day (the hours) are intimately related to the subdivisions of the solar unit of the year (the months), and as the months are still counted from 1 to 12, so are the hours. Even though the hours are still numbered from 1 to 12, they are counted as though the highest number, 12, were replaced by 0. In other words, hours are not counted from 1 through 12, but from 12 to 1 through 11. The day begins at the stroke of midnight, 12:00. The 12:00 hour does not represent the last hour of the day. The afternoon begins at the stroke of noon, 12:00. The 12:00 hour does not represent the last hour of the morning. Officially, the years of the modern calendar are still counted as they have been since ancient times, beginning with the year 1. However, the number of the year does not have a fixed end, and is subdivided into sub units for counting; decades, centuries, and millennia. The ancient system of counting is proving itself unsatisfactory to the modern age and modern people, and there is a great tendency for people to want to change the counting system, even if unofficially.

Modern Units Of Time

The modern emphasis and importance of counting years is different from ancient times. When a new king ascended the throne, or when a new dynasty was founded, or when a new government was founded, a new calendar, or a new era, would begin with year 1 as the '1'st year. Such calendars always oriented toward the past. At year 10, a decade would have completed, and people would celebrate that the king had been on the throne for 10 years. At year 100, a century would complete, and people would celebrate the 100th year of the dynasty or of the government, on the 100th year of the calendar. The people would be celebrating the past, the past 10 or 100 years. When a person reaches 50 years of age, or a marriage reaches 50 years, or a school reunion reaches 50 years, people celebrate the number 50 as the end of a number of years.

Although modern people count years to celebrate the past in the case of birthdays, anniversaries, and reunions, the calendar no longer celebrates the past. People no longer expect the cycle of our calendar to end, but expect it to continue forever. In modern society, people now celebrate the future.

The year 2000, with three zeros, is an esthetically pretty number. Most people wish to celebrate that year. 'Purists' tell them to go ahead and celebrate it, but that what they are celebrating is the end of the millennium, and not the beginning. However, modern people do not celebrate endings, they prefer to celebrate beginnings. Every January 1, it is customary to celebrate the beginning of a new year: It is not instead customary to celebrate December 31 as the end of the old year. In modern society, which uses modern arithmetic, the number 10 is no longer seen as the last of the ten basic numbers, but rather 0 is seen as the first of the ten basic numbers. People wish to celebrate the year 2000, and they wish to celebrate the beginning of the new millennium, not the end of the old one.

Modern units of counting begin with 0 and end with 9; they do not begin with 1 and end with 10. Dollars are counted from 0¢ to 99¢, not from 1¢ to $1.00. When new, car odometers read 00000 miles. When a car odometers passes 99999 miles, and again reaches 00000, people do not celebrate the end of a cycle, they celebrate the beginning of a new cycle.

January and February were later added to the beginning of the Roman year, and the beginning of the year was moved back to the winter solstice. The Roman calendar counted years from the legendary founding of the city, now known as 753 B.C. The first year, 753 B.C., was known to the Romans as 1 A.U.C. A.U.C. stands for Ab Urbe Conditae, which means 'from the founding of the city'.

In the year 708 A.U.C. (46 B.C.), Julius Caesar modified the calendar, which was then named after him as the Julian calendar. At that time, the months alternated between long and short months of 31 and 30 days. For political reasons, during the first 50 years of the Julian calendar the lengths of the months were changed to their modern lengths, where February was reduced to 28 days and the months no longer alternate 31 and 30 days. 800 years later, in the time of Charlemagne, the first year of the calendar, the year 1, was officially changed to have begun on January 1 one week after the assumed birthday of Jesus. Pope Gregory modified the calendar in 1582, and the new calendar was renamed the Gregorian calendar after him.

Perhaps the calendar should officially change again, to reflect our modern system of numerals. Whether or not such a change is adopted officially, many, many people already unofficially recognize the year 2000 to be the beginning of the next millennium, the year 1990 to be the beginning of the decade of the 90's, etc.

There have been many unofficial attempts to modify the calendar over the centuries. According to the 'official rules', the years following the birth of Jesus are numbered forward from 1 (1, 2, 3, …), and are followed by the letters A.D. A.D. stands for Anno Domeni, which in Latin means 'in the year of our Lord'. The years preceding the birth of Jesus are numbered backward from 1 (1, 2, 3, …), and are followed by the letters B.C. B.C. stands for Before Christ. There was no year 0.

One unofficial convention that many people follow keeps the year numbers that are associated with B.C. and A.D., yet changes B.C. to B.C.E. and changes A.D. to C.E. Because most scientists no longer believe Jesus to have been born in 1 A.D., and because many people want to separate religion from the calendar, B.C. (Before Christ) is often change to B.C.E. (Before the Common Era, or sometimes Before the Christian Era). A.D. is changed to C.E. (Common Era, or Christian Era).

This solution still does not bring the calendar into line with modern arithmetic. Whereas the distance in space on a number line from +10 to -10 is 20, the distance in time on the calendar from 10 A.D. to 10 B.C. is not 20 years but is 19 years, because there was no year 0.

Another solution was adopted by many astronomers as far back as 250 years ago. This solution removes the A.D. from all years that fall in the past 2000 years. The B.C. is removed from years before that, and is replaced by the negative sign. As well, each year B.C. is shifted by one. In other words, 1 B.C. becomes the year 0, 2 B.C. becomes the year -1, 3 B.C. becomes the year -2, etc.

With this system, the difference between year 10 and year -10 would be 20 years; the calendar would follow the rules of modern arithmetic. With this system, the decade of the 90's would begin in 1990, not 1991, and the third millennium would begin in the year 2000, not 2001. In other words, this system would satisfy the 'natural' feelings of esthetics that develop in modern people who grow up using modern arithmetic and Arabic numerals.

The Julian and Gregorian calendars were enacted over the objections of the common people. The year 46 B.C. was known as the 'year of confusion', as it was lengthened to 445 days in order to bring the calendar back to the 'proper' time. People complained greatly. When the Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1582, 10 days were lost, as October 4 was followed by October 15. When England finally adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, 11 days had to be dropped from the month of September, and September 2 was followed by September 14. In the English, and American, version of the modern calendar, the dates September 3-13, 1752 do not exist! The common people were furious and rioted at the presumed loss of their missing days. Thus, throughout history large numbers of days have suddenly been both inserted and deleted from certain years in order to adjust the calendar. The calendar will of course continue to be adjusted in the future.

The insertion of a year zero would greatly simplify and modernize counting of the years, and the change of an arbitrary date errantly selected 1200 years ago for an event that happened 800 years previous to that would not be nearly as traumatic to society as was the adoption of the Julian or the Gregorian calendar. In actual fact, people seem to be making such an adjustment even over the objections of the calendar authorities.

Whether or not the years B.C. become identified as negative numbers, great numbers of people seem to be inserting a year 0 into the calendar, and intend to celebrate the beginning of the third millennium in the year 2000 and not in the year 2001. The Royal Greenwich Observatory and other official organizations cannot officially condone the year 2000 without an official act of law. Common people have no such restriction. Although 'purists' can claim that their year, 2001, is the 'true' and 'correct' year, they should concede that it is correct only to those people who accept it as correct. The system that is used by people with a more modern approach, which recognizes the year 2,000 as the beginning of the next millennium, should also be recognized to be valid.

For more on the nature of time and the evolution of the awareness of time and space throughout the history of the species Homo Sapiens, please visit the website 5dSpace-Time.org.

Dennis Goldwater