Talk:Century

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Year 0

Lots of people struggle to understand that centuries end in years ending 00 because there was no year 0.

I've twice had an edit making this clear reverted, once without explanation, and once by someone saying they thought it was sufficiently clear. Edit warring is bad. I'd like consensus for the following edit, the proposed addition being in bold:

"According to the strict construction of the Gregorian calendar, because there was no year zero, the 1st century began with the year 1 and ended with the year 100. Therefore the 2nd century started with the year 101..."

Thanks --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 12:16, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Lots of people struggle to understand that centuries end in years ending 00 because there was no year 0" because it's not true. Here are some reason's why:

Very often, years are written without any words or abbreviation designating the notation system, such as "AD", "CE", "in the year of our Lord", etc. Such years might be using astronomical year numbering or ISO 8601.
The author of the year might be thinking of it commemorating the incarnation of Jesus, as the creator of the year numbering system, Dionysius Exiguus did. But because Dionysius mostly wrote about his Easter table, and only described the year numbering in passing, we don't know if he thought the incarnation occurred in what we might call 2 BC, 1 BC or AD 1. Also, Dionysius never wrote down any designation for 2 BC or 1 BC, so we don't know how he would have written it.

I also oppose the edit because most people would consider centuries to be the same, give or take several days, regardless of whether one is using the Gregorian or Julian calendar. (There is also the complication that the Gregorian calendar used Dionysius's year numbering from its inception, while the Julian calendar has used a wide variety of systems for naming years. For example, in Rome, what we would call the year of our Lord 1 was called the year of the consulship of Caesar and Paullus. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:09, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Re point one, the sentence is referring to the Gregorian calendar. Re point two, the sentence is referring to the Gregorian calendar. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:22, 10 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No, the sentence isn't referring to the Gregorian calendar, because the first post in this thread does not establish context. I we collapse this thread and you start over, specifying exactly where in the article you want your change to go. Jc3s5h (talk) 11:18, 10 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this so difficult? The section is called "Start and end in the Gregorian calendar" and the sentence I'm referring to in that section currently begins "According to the strict construction of the Gregorian calendar..." --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 14:55, 10 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I take it you're now happy with the proposed edit. Thank you. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 21:55, 10 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Quite simple: Lots pf people are unable to distinguish between a period/span of time (years, minutes seconds, ...) and a point in the time scala. Simply remember the temperature scale. 2A02:8108:9640:AC3:E576:7308:B00F:4DBB (talk) 08:50, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There was no year 1 - 500 either they were posthumously numbered. In ICO system there is a year 0 2A0A:EF40:10B6:ED01:998:861C:5D7C:5442 (talk) 22:08, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal seeking to replace "Strict" and "General" to "Conservative" and "Conventional".

The terms "strict" and "general" can be pretty vague when you put some thought to it ("general" is not used by Historians and most scientist and governmental agencies) and "strict" seems a bit biased to me, implying the other approaches are not "strict" and should be further discussed. "Conservative" would of course, be easily identified as adhering to its traditional definition whereas "conventional" is believed to be what the majority perspective stands. The changes would look like this.

Which is why I invite editors to comment on this idea, and vote to support or oppose. Dinosauce2001 (talk) 19:38, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I could see "conservative", because some of those who adhere to what we've been calling the "strict" view are the sorts of people or institutions that we might call conservative, such as Pope Leo XIII or the United States Naval Observatory.

But I don't associate the term "conventional" at all with what we have been calling the general view. To me, "conventional" is nearly a synonym for "conservative".

Oxford University Press, in their Lexico web dictionary, under the century entry, state

Strictly speaking, centuries run from 01 to 100, meaning that the new century begins on the first day of the year 01 (i.e. 1 January 1901, 1 January 2001, etc.). In practice and in popular perception, however, the new century is held to begin when the significant digits in the date change, e.g. on 1 January 2000, when 1999 became 2000.

This passage would support the terms "strict" and "popular", which I would be happy with. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:34, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Conservative" has a lot of subjective connotations, none of which are helpful here; we shouldn't use it, no more than we'd use "liberal" for the opposite. Using "Strict" is okay by me. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 21:47, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have recently been considering this issue, and I would support the use of "strict" and "popular", as used in the Oxford dictionary. --Blurryman (talk) 00:53, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Strict versus popular

The picture showing the strict versus the popular way of looking at centuries, shows the popular 1st century, i.e. the first 100 years, as consisting of the years 1 - 99. Madyno (talk) 21:19, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's because the "popular" way counts centuries as starting from years ending in a zero, but a "Year Zero" does not exist in the A.D. year-numbering system. There are similar anomalies with "popular" decades and "popular" millennia. --Blurryman (talk) 23:48, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For clarity in the "Strict vs Popular" table, could the negative years be extended to include at least one example century like "|102 BC|101 BC|100 BC|99 BC| ... |2 BC|1 BC|" with the appropriate Century Divisions represented also? And does this imply that two years are missing from this convention - the year of twelve months from year 0 to year 1 AND the year of twelve months from year 0 to year -1? SquashEngineer (talk) 17:43, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I guess a larger topic could also address the change throughout the article of using the more generic terms of BCE and CE as opposed to BC and AD ? SquashEngineer (talk) 17:43, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]