[Happy New Decade] Identical Twins Born In Separate Decades

It's cheaper to throw just one party. I think Juan needs to rethink things.

 

I can see them telling this story every time they meet anyone.

And people will get tired of it very quickly.

 

Except that they were both born in the same decade.

The new decade doesn't start until January 1st, 2011, regardless of popular perception.

 

Aaaaaaaand.... we're off!


:grin:

 

Exactly what I came in to post.

 

Did you guys call 1980 the last year of the '70s?


"Year 1" started with virtual zero, on day 1. But day 1 was no less part of year 1, than day 364 was.


If you use "___" to represent a year, then the year we call the "New Year" is actually the number of the completed years.

Example:

virtual 0___1___2___3___4___5___6___7___8___9 = 10 years = decade

Each "___" is a year. If you add the "year 10" to it, it is 11 years.


Easiest example is to think of the year like a child. Is a child 1 year old at birth? No. But is the child in their first year on their day of birth? Yes. At the culmination of the full year, we THEN say they are "one year old." And then, at age 10 they are a decade old, not age 11.


It's really not that hard to see.

 

ooh... OP got owned SwoLy-style

 

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It's because there isn't a Year Zero in the Gregorian Calendar. It went from 1 B.C to 1 A.D.

The average stupid European then couldn't count to zero.

 

Except that, THIS is a more accurate representation of how our calendar began...

Since we started at "1 AD" on the very first day on our calendar (rather than starting at 0 AD) then the first 10 years were 1, 2, 3, 4 , 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 AD.

Meaning, if you start from the beginning of our calendar and count upward in sets of 10, the year 2010 (or any year ending in "0") is the last year in a set, not the first.

 

Any period of 10 years can be a decade.

Are we talking about 2000-2009 or 2001-2010?

 

Sweet, let's enjoy the new millenium... 2010-3010

 

2010-3009. GET IT RIGHT!

 

When people see more than one number change on a calendar, it makes something in their pants tingle. That's why it's more exciting for them to believe that 2010 or 2020 or 2030 is the start a new decade and especially why 2000 was a big deal and 2001 wasn't even though the latter was technically the start of the new millennium. Surprisingly, I see more people now who acknowledge that this isn't actually the start of a new decade than there were in 2000. They just don't give a **** and choose to celebrate 2010 as the start of a new decade anyway.

 

Not really. Its just r****ded to count anything from 0. Its like having 10 pencils, and counting from 0 to 9. After you give away 9 pencils, you would have 0 pencils.

 

Yes, a decade is a period of 10 years, but if we put decades on a sliding timeline, then I could say that I finished typing this post in a different decade than I started it. That would be silly.

So, we consider decades to be 10 year periods as denoted by our calendar. That puts 2009 and 2010 in the same decade, if you start counting decades from the start of the calendar (1 AD).

 

I hit the "Submit Reply" button at 6:41pm, and obviously started typing the message some time before that. Let's say I started typing at 6:39pm. I could say that the time from 6:40pm on January 3rd, 2000 to 6:40pm on January 3rd 2010 is a decade because it's a period of exactly 10 years. That would put 6:41pm on January 3rd, 2010 in a different decade. Of course, that would be a ridiculous way to treat decades, so we don't.

That's why we partition the calendar into 10 year chunks and call those decades. Again, if you start from the beginning of our calendar, those 10 year chunks end in years that end in "0" and start with years that end in "1" (as opposed to "9" and "0" respectively).

However, you have to remember that I'm not arguing what popular perception considers to be a decade. I'm arguing that the perception is, technically, erroneous.