The Century!

Hello All!

I would like to know what does it mean by the century, for example, the 19th century. What I think is that "19th century" means the period form 1800-1900! Is that correct?


Thanks in advance....

"..........."19th century" means the period form 1800-1900! Is that correct?"

Yes you are correct (well really it should be 1800 to 1899, 1900 would be counted as the first year of the "20th century". AD stands for the Latin phrase "anno domini" which means "in the year of our Lord." So the first century would be the 100 years immediately following the birth of Christ (00 AD to 99 AD). So “the 19th century” would be the year of our Lord 1800 AD to 1899 AD

Well hell's belles, I'm wrong too. Meant to say that First century would be O1 AD to 99 AD. Wouldn't be any such thing as the year OO AD!

I don't mean to be pendantic, but the 19th century was from 1801 to 1900

The 21st Century began on Monday, January 1, 2001 and will end on Friday, December 31, 2100.

<<I don't mean to be pendantic, but the 19th century was from 1801 to 1900

The 21st Century began on Monday, January 1, 2001 and will end on Friday, December 31, 2100.>>

And so the 80s was from 1981 to 1990? I don't think so. The 80s was from 1980 to 1989 and likewise the 21st century is from 2000 to 2099. Most millennial celebrates took place on December 31, 1999.

I know this is a language forum, but it helps to be well rounded.



The fist day of the 21st century was Monday, January 1, 2001




From http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/52465.html


Ask Dr. Math


First Day of the 21st Century

Date: 12/01/1999 at 12:04:15
From: Rob Prejean
Subject: 1st day of 21st century??

What is the true date of the first day of the 21st century? From what
day are we counting 2000 years?

Date: 12/01/1999 at 12:28:38
From: Doctor Rick
Subject: Re: 1st day of 21st century??

Hi, Rob.

A millennium is by definition "a period of 1000 years." The question,
therefore, is, What span of years was covered by the first millennium?
... the second millennium? etc.

If the first millennium began with the year 0 AD, then you could
count: 0, 1, 2, ..., 98, 99 would be 100 years. Those 100 years would
be the first century ("period of 100 years"). The second century would
begin on January 1, AD 100. Similarly, the second millennium would
begin on January 1, 1000, and the third millennium on January 1, 2000.

However, it's an historical fact that THERE WAS NO YEAR AD 0. The
first century began on January 1, AD 1. You can follow the same logic
as above to see that the first century encompassed the years 1, 2,
..., 100, and the second century began on Jan. 1, AD 101. Likewise,
the next millennium will begin on Jan. 1, 2001.

Here is where the history of math comes into the picture. If it were
not for what follows, I would not care a bit when people want to say
the millennium begins - it's just an arbitrary day with no deep
significance. But I am fascinated by the history of math, and here we
have one occasion when math history has a significant impact on things
that are happening now. I have told others that I would like to see
the year 2000 celebrated in schools as the Year of the Zero.

Here's why. The calendar was developed around AD 525, by Dionysius
Exiguus. At that time in Europe, numbers were written in Roman
numerals. Our Hindu-Arabic number system had not been invented. There
was no such thing as zero; the earliest known use of a zero was in
India 350 years later.

Using Roman numerals, Dionysius had no choice: numbers started with I.
The year after I BC was AD I in his reckoning. There was no number to
give to a year in between.

This seems very strange to us, who are accustomed to a number line of
integers: -4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ... But Dionysius and his
contemporaries had no concept of negative numbers either, at least not
as a continuous progression from negative through zero to positive.
"Negative" quantities were treated separately from positive
quantities. It did not seem strange to them that the number of years
from AD 10 to AD 40 is 30 - 10 = 20, but the number of years from 10
BC to AD 10 is 10 + 10 - 1 = 19. The problems are different, and you
solve them differently; that's the way it works.

If we had it to do over again, we would probably have used the number
0 for the year in which Jesus Christ was born. Then his first birthday
would have been in the year 1.

As it is, it would be a lot of work to renumber the years so that
there is a year 0. Either we would have to rename AD 1 to AD 0, and
likewise with all the years after - so that this is 1998, and the
millennium is still a year away - or we would rename 1 BC to 0 AD,
and every BC date would change, so all the ancient history books would
need to be altered.

(By the way, if we were going to renumber the years, we'd probably
want to correct Dionysius' other problem: his date for the birth of
Jesus Christ was most likely 5 or 6 years late. This year really
should be AD 2004; we missed the millennium.)

The best way is to keep things as they are, and make the year 2000
"the Year of the Zero," an opportunity to remind ourselves what it
used to be like before people had the brilliant idea of zero.
"Nothing" has had quite an impact on the world!

- Doctor Rick, The Math Forum
http://mathforum.org/dr.math/