Author: Bob Durrett
Date: 19:37:03 03/18/04
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On March 18, 2004 at 21:49:32, Mark Ryan wrote: >On March 18, 2004 at 18:45:36, Jeroen van Dorp wrote: > >[snip] > >>Following the debate about the exact beginning of the new millennium (2001) you >>could well argue that Steve's "sixties" start at age 61. > >[snip] > >>J. > >No, Steve's situation is different. The calendar never had a Year Zero: the >year One BC is followed by One AD. Thus the first day of Anno Domini occurs in >the Year One. And 2000 years elapse in January of 2001. But for Steve, 60 >years of life elapse the day he turns 60, and therefore his "sixties" start at >age 60. Technically, that is inaccurate. He was "alive" as a distinct [and probably unique] entity for at least 60 years, approximately nine months [assuming a normal pregnancy], and however many days have elapsed since his birthday. To be more accurate, one would have to take into account the hours, minutes, seconds, tenths of seconds, etc. since the time of the fertilization of "his" egg. The precise determination would have to take into account the fact that fertilization of an egg does not take place instantaneously so a specific event in that process would have to be designated [by mutual agreement among experts] as being the moment when his life began. Of course, the real situation may be much more complicated than that because we do not know for sure that Steve is not a clone or has been in cryogenic suspended animation for hundreds of years. We have to assume. : ) Bob D. > >Incidentally, the exact beginning of the new millenium could not have been on >January 1, 2001, because 10 days were "disappeared" as a result of the switch >from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar: > >http://www.geocities.com/calendopaedia/gregory.htm > >http://www.geocities.com/calendopaedia/julian.htm > >Moreover, the current "millenium" is a retrospective construction, because, of >course, the concepts of BC and AD were not invented until long after the time of >Christ. > >So ultimately it was fair to celebrate the millenium whenever we felt like it. >Smart people partied three times (or more). > >Mark (Happy Birthday, Steve)
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