Guest guest Posted December 30, 2000 Report Share Posted December 30, 2000 By Mark Billington I asked myself waking up this morning, has the new millenium really arrived? I checked my bookshelves and found two books: NUMBER, THE LANGUAGE OF SCIENCE by Tobias Dantzig and MATHEMATICS, Life Science Library. It seems a Hindu around 500 AD, first used a symbol for zero, called "sunya." Around 825 AD in Baghdad, al-Khowarizini wrote of the Indian zero as "sifir." Italians imported the zero as "zephirum" in the 13th century and by the 14th century called it "zero." The Germans named it "cifra" which became "cipher." The city-state of Florence had outlawed the use of zero, fearing that the merchants who had mastered its use would cheat them. The use of zero went underground and was made into a secret sign, thus the word "decipher." My conclusion? With no zero until many centuries after 0 AD, 0 BC, year zero of our Lord, the only possible way to satrt counting years would have been to begin at 1 AD. Math year 1 + 2000 years= 2001. Thus we are not yet to the new millenium. Jan 1 2000 began "Y2K" the Roman numeral year "MM," but this New Year's Eve will end the first 2000 years! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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