NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: millenium - 2000 or 2001?
From: Rodney Myrvaagnes
Date: 1999 Dec 28, 7:20 AM
From: Rodney Myrvaagnes
Date: 1999 Dec 28, 7:20 AM
On Mon, 27 Dec 1999 23:55:50 -0800, Tony wrote: >Huh? Is there a nit here?? It is simply an allusion to what is >stated by USNO and RGO in their explanations ...which I consider >more authoritative. Don't you? As I said before, I regard them as authoritative with respect to time keeping. This includes leap second insertions and the like. It is important to keep date/time designations consistent for the use of almanacs, etc. So, for consistency, we agree to call this year 1999, so everyone will know which volume of the almanac to use for sight reductions, etc. If almanacs were labeled something like "Almanac for the third year of the fourth century" we would need the timekeeping authority to publish clearly what that meant. Since they are never so labeled, what century or millennium you call this is a scientific and practical "don't care." If you, or anyone else, wishes to say that the year 19xx belongs to a different century than other years beginning with 19, I say that is your priviledge, because it has no consequences. The same for a year 1xxx being in a different millennium from other years 1xxx. The digit-flipping of Y2K has, as others have pointed out, the same significance as the odometer rolling over in a car. Celebrating a the millennium shift that occurs at a new year without a millennium-digit shift, is like celebrating 100,001 miles, which is, at least, palindromic. How about 2002? :-) Rodney Myrvaagnes J36 Gjoa Associate Editor Electronic Products My oyster knife is Y2K compliant