Real Millennium Group (TM) Go 2 Zero Debates - File 4 (When viewing these files in Notepad, make sure you have your Word Wrap (under the "Edit" function) checked. *********************************** These are conversations and debates with Go2Zero supporters. Alan Dechert is the creator of the Global Era Calendar which he hoped would be used starting this year to eliminate the religious connotations of our current AD/BC system, and begin with Year 0, so all the millennia and centuries begin in the "0" year, such as 2000, instead of the current 2001 year. The first 4 files that are primarily posts from me and Alan. Files 5 and 6 contain posts from other people, as well as myself about this and other related subjects. *********************************** Subject: Re: Problems of having a Zero Year Date: 01/22/2000 Author: bjwyler Again, Time may be a scalar quantity, but our method of "cataloguing" it is discrete, but basically, all points towards this, and the use of zero in computer science is moot. If our system of numbering years (starting with 1) needs to be fixed, it only follows that by starting with 1 for the month and day also needs to be fixed. But as Alan put it (in one word) -- discretion. If I remember anything from my debating class, it was to be sure of your facts, and be consistent in your argument of those facts. By being inconsistent, you save your opponent the trouble of refuting your points, because you refute yourself, and do twice the damage that your opponent could do. If all the credentials, and concepts you used to refute my argument all comes down to whether or not you feel the need to fix our other two cataloguing elements with the one you have proposed, any monkey with half a brain could have done what you have done. If you think starting from 1 in the years numbering system needs to be fixed, then the month numbering system (January = 1, and so on) and the day numbering system needs to be fixed as well since they use the exact same concept, only for smaller periods of time. By saying that these systems do not need to be fixed, then the year numbering system does not need to be fixed, and come January 1, 2001, we can revert back to Year 1. You have refuted your own concept for me. Scales start at point zero, if we choose to label one with zero, as you did with your system. However, you are not starting it at that point. You are starting it at the interval immediately next to it. Our lowest point on the thermometer is Absolute Zero. However you are not starting at that point, because you are using 1's for month and day. If, as you say, we can start at point 0, then there are points prior to Month 1, and Day 1, which you have skipped over. This also makes it much more confusing for the layman -- we're starting at year 0, making the 2nd year in the system 1, but our 2nd month and day of the system is 2? Even more confusion results than the examples I pointed out in my previous post. Come to think of it, I have half a brain -- actually, I have 2 halves, resulting in twice the power! I am a descendant of apes (on my father's side I believe), and they are members of the primate family, as are monkies, so that works too. Heck! I'll start my own calendar, called the Absolute Year Zero calendar, and to be consistent with the scalar quantity of time, I'll start the whole system at point zero. So 0/0/00 will be the first day of the first month of the first year of the Era of pure mathematics!!!! Since New Year's is just an arbitrary starting point we have now (the new year used to start in March), I can start this calendar at any point in time that I want. Our solar year is slowing down, but if I base the calendar on the number of oscillations of atomic cesium, I can more accurately determine what corrections will need to be made so our seasons won't end up drifting. But since I won't be around to make the first correction, I'll let someone else worry about that. But how to make people accept it, hmmm .... Ah ha!! Market it as a gimmick and novelty item. People are fascinated by gimmicks and novelties, and so at first they will look at it this way, and after everyone in the world owns a Absolute Year Zero calendar, they will see the beauty and logical aspect of it and adopt the system world wide. People will come together, countries will make peace, and we will finally have a truly united world!!! Oh the ecstacy of it all!!!! Brought to you by the maker of the Real Millennium Group (TM), where Time is but an option, and nonsense the integer. *********************************** Subject: Re: Problems of having a Zero Year Date: 01/22/2000 Author: bjwyler <<"First" does not have to refer to item no. "one." The "first" could be item 42, or 1990, or zero, or just about anything else.>> First ALWAYS has to refer (in some way) to the number one. Here's the definition again: Preceding all others in the order of numbering: the ordinal of one (1); Prior to all others in time; earliest; Foremost in importance or quality; before or above all others in time or rank; the ordinal number that matches the number 1 in a series; the beginning: from first to last. (What is the definition of zeroth?) We could begin the count with 42, 1990, zero, or anything else (examples of which I used in a prior post). Each of these numbers or things would be the first count in the series. But how do we determine how many units we have in each series? Let's say we end up counting 5 units in each series, beginning with the first: 42, 43, 44, 45, 46 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 Elvis, Tigger, Gandalf, Willy, Shadow In order to count how many we have in each series, starting with the first, we use our ordinal numbers to label each unit, add up each unit, and reach a total, represented by another ordinal number: ....1........+1(2).......+1(3).......+1(4).......+1(5) --42-------43-------44--------45--------46 1990-----1991----1992-----1993------1994 ---0--------1---------2---------3---------4 Elvis-----Tigger----Gandalf---Willy----Shadow 1+1+1+1+1=5 That is what I am referring to, and how the current calendar system works (zero was accepted and taught as part of our numerology when the Gregorian Calendar was developed. How come they didn't start each month with 0? Why don't you? "Discretion" is not a proper explanation), but instead of waiting until the year is over to assign it an ordinal, we assign the ordinal when we start it, so we know where if falls in the count (see previous post for more in depth explanation). You did so yourself with your 3 BC - 3 AD example. It is five years, when YOU START COUNTING WITH ONE. If we start with zero, it is only FOUR years! Time is scalar, or linear, as we both have said before, and the beginning of time was point zero. We do this on a scale to show that we have "none" of what the scale represents. Absolute Zero means no molecular movement whatsoever, but as soon as we have movement, it is no longer zero -- it has something, making it a discrete quantity, and we cannot have an existing discrete quantity that is zero (nothing; non- existent; a cardinal number indicating the ABSENCE OF QUANTITY). The instant time went from being non-existent to existent, it becomes able to be quantified (counted), making any system used to quantify the whole, or portions thereof, a discrete system. Your first anniversary is in 1990 -- how many anniversaries do you have? -- 1. Your second anniversary is in 1991 -- how many do you have now? -- 2. Our basic definition of these numerals precludes giving the label of zero to an existing item in the count, be it a physical apple, an inning in a baseball game, or the man-made label for a specified amount of time. If a baby was born in 1990, the period from 1990-1991 is the first year, the period from 1991-1992 is the second year. To make it simple, use an apple to represent each year of the baby's life -- on it's third birthday, the baby has 2 complete years. Count the apples -- 1, 2. You can call, label, or assign each apple anything you want -- A & B, 0 & 1, Fib & Fub, but neither of them can be equated mathematically with zero. Using the example from above, if you use a zero, instead of a 1 to count the first object, the count becomes wrong based on the definition of the ordinal numeral of 5. If that is wrong, then our whole mathematical system is wrong, and as a consequence, none of your arguments, or mine, or anyone's matter. Until you can tell me how I can hold an apple in my hand, and say I have zero apples in my hand, based on our discrete counting system, and the definitions that apply to our numbers as they are described in any dictionary, and the definition of zeroth, then I cannot support year zero. BJWyler www.RealMillenniumGroup.com PS -- computers may have existed without the use of zero. Archeologists have discovered primitive forms of computers -- before the concept of zero was developed. *********************************** Subject: Re: Problems of having a Zero Year Date: 01/25/2000 Author: bjwyler I think the problem we have here is that we are both talking from the same coin, but on opposite sides. You are using your experience and knowledge of the higher principles of mathematics and computer science as a way to rework the calendar, and I am using the simpler principles and basics that our mathematical and scientific systems were formed from. Neither of us are completely wrong or right, it's just a matter of how each system relates to how we should reorganize our calendar. Our system for assigning values to differentiate one year from another is really nothing more than a naming system, like I showed in my prior two posts. Just like we use tools in the Metric system, and the US system, each system works well, one might be slightly easier to work with than the other, but neither system is wrong. However, although we may use tools that look exactly the same, they don't work exactly the same one going from one system to another. We can find a wrench in the metric system that comes close to matching a bolt in the US system, but it's not a perfect fit, and a little extra work is required to use the metric wrench, than it would to find the appropriate US equivalent. This is what we have here -- is it easier and more appropriate to use a higher mathematical principle to naming years for a system where the more simpler principle works just as well? I don't think it is; you do. Most of the higher mathematical systems were developed before zero came into use -- geometry, algebra, calculus -- and these systems work just as well. Just because zero can be applied to the computer sciences doesn't mean it can, or should, be applied to other concepts and systems. John said that many computers already figure the year only as two digits. Computers already use the year zero, we just understand that it is the year 2000 -- there's really no need to change that fact (again, I am in favor of a new system, but the less changes made to how we reckon that system the better). In one of my 1/22 posts, I attacked the fact that you wish to start from year zero, but not month zero and day zero. You wish to mark the years as we mark birthdays -- will we also do so with our centuries and millennia? Beginning with the 0th Century and 0th Millennium, instead of the first in each category? Just as we don't say "zero and a half years" for a six month old baby, we don't commonly say "I'm 30 years and six months." In this case, we drop the smaller measurement because it really isn't necessary. Our ages really just mark how many birthdays we have celebrated (the points on the line) and not the years (the segments). Looking at the current BC/AD system on a line, we don't have a point marked zero. If we were to bring this concept to a physical model, we would use apples to represent each year of the BC system, and oranges for the AD system. It is easier to reckon the years before Christ starting with the first year before his birth, and working backwards, than trying to find the beginning of time and counting forward. At any rate, with each apple and orange line up, representing a year, we cannot COUNT any physical object as zero, since the "nothing" definition would have to apply. We can "name" each object anything we want, but there is no mathematical relation to the name and the count. Just as there is no mathematical relation between naming a "Year of the Dragon" and it's position in our count. This is what I am trying to say. To have a year zero because it is more mathematically correct than starting with year one, is not true. There is a mathematical basis for naming something zero, but used as a name (descriptor) it loses it's mathematical value. On one final note, before I bid good-bye to everyone, and get back to all the other work that needs to be done (I'll still check in every once on a while), Alan, I was just wondering if you sent your proposal to the Greenwich Royal Observatory. I believe they are considered the "official timekeepers," and would like their take on the new system. BJWyler www.RealMillenniumGroup.com *********************************** Subject: Re: Problems of having a Zero Year Date: 01/25/2000 Author: adechert In 98, I sent it to the British Prime Minister (I sent it to 24 world leaders). He sent it to someone else ...Warwick J.S. Hawkins of the Dept for Culture, Media & Sport, Millennium Unit. Mr. Hawkins who wrote to me: <> He goes on to suggest that I might want to contact the Head of Time at the National Physical Laboratory. I wasn't surprised to learn that "the British Government has no plans to reset the year to zero in 2000" since the Prime Minister had likely just learned of the proposal. I don't recall if I sent anything to the National Physical Laboratory. No government is going to touch it without seeing some considerable public support for it. I sent it as a courtesy and to get them used to the idea. A much more important step before that is media-corporate support for it. A few movers-and-shakers there could make it happen pretty quickly. I don't need any scientific validation. More than a few of my supporters are scientists--some fairly well-known (I'm still working on getting one that is *really* famous). Lots of scientists know of the idea. None of them have ever argued against it on mathematical or scientific grounds. Some of the people with statements on my testimonials page and on my signers page are scientists. Just the other day, Bob McClenon (a scientist who posts in this forum sometimes) wrote a statement on the Talk 2000 forum. While he stops short of saying he supports the reform, he does say it's mathematically valid. You can read his article here: http://www.deja.com/[ST_artlink=www.escribe.com]/jump/http://www.escribe.com/history/2000ad/m1939.html The only people that have claimed the idea is not mathematically sound have been non-technical people. You can join the ranks people like Ozren Podnar of Croatia. He is another with a journalism background who somehow thinks he knows better what is mathematically possible. See: http://www.deja.com/[ST_artlink=www.go2zero.com]/jump/http://www.go2zero.com/ozren.htm --Alan Dechert ***********************************