how the years add up

I remember my Dad's aphorism (as probably do most of his former students) that "Math is Beautiful." (Just looked up aphorism, to check that I wasn't choosing the wrong word, this being a diatribe about accuracy and all. It might be that his wasn't an original thought, but he certainly owned the statement.) Anyway, he loved math because there were always correct solutions to problems (unlike life's problems, but that hints at a different story). I think though, that over the years he probably found a lot of students who couldn't find their way to those correct solutions. This is likely why he never stated "Math is Simple."

I'm thinking about math today (which I am no longer very good at, lack of practice) because I'm thinking about counting (which I can still do). Hmm, perhaps more accurately, I'm thinking about arithmetic, because I'm thinking about counting decades as we're coming up to a new one.

inside my head, ouch

It's true! (Yeah, yeah, I hear you: What's truth?) But really, by our calendar, it's a new decade starting on Saturday. I know, I know, most people will disagree, and say that the decade began with 2010. I remember arguing with people about this when we rolled over into the year 2000, and yes, it's generally accepted as the beginning of the new millennium. It seemed the whole world felt that way, because 2000 is such a nice round number. So that became the consensus, and the fact the numbers didn't add up didn't seem to matter. It felt good to have 2000 as the starting point; I try to accept this, but it hurts my head.

(Interesting that the whole world fell into financial difficulties together too, isn't it? Mixing up numbers with emotions seems somehow a miscalculation, something to remember the next time—tomorrow?—the stock market slides.)

So why does this make my head hurt? I mean, it's kind of ad nauseam for members of my family, and I hate being a pain to them; but while they can count, they have succeeded in letting this idea go, if they ever held it. I fear I have more of my curmudgeon father in me than I like to admit... Do I always have to be right? My goodness, this really isn't simple.

But to go on (yes, I do) I think where the confusion comes in, is that calendar years and age years are different. The point is, there is no year zero in our calendar, we went straight to one. I've read that zero wasn't always an accepted concept; perhaps it has something to do with that, the same way that perspective wasn't always understood in art. So do people have a better understanding of art than of numbers? Maybe.

But this beginning with zero means you have to get to the end of 2000 years (that would be to the beginning of 2001) before you slip into the next millennium. The same (and less!) counting applies to decades: starting with the first decade AD—remember, no zero—you start with the year 1, and have to get to the end of the year 10, before you get into the beginning of the next decade at year 11. Therefore, you have to get to the end of 2010 to get to the start of a new decade, 2011, this coming Saturday. Whew, glad I cleared that up.

When we are counting the years in our ages, there is a zero year. We don't 'turn' one until we've completed a whole year. That means that while I am said to be 58-years-old, I am well into my 59th year. On my 59th birthday I will be starting into my 60th year. When I get to be 60, I will be entering my 7th decade. (Geez, that's depressing.)

This way of counting our age is cultural, if I understand it correctly. The Chinese, for one, begin counting their age with one (no zero year) and therefore the significant ages end in 1s. Sixty is no big deal, but 61 is. But China joined in on the celebration over the year 2000, too. I suspect that was just a concession to their customers in the western world (the customer is always right) because their calendar is entirely different; it of course doesn't count from the (guesstimated) before/after of JC at all. As you might have noticed, given they also celebrate another New Year (and we wonder why China is such a rising power).

But numbers are apparently quite a puzzle to most of us. This would explain why the media are so full of stories about personal and public debt loads. Too many of us don't know how to count, how to add and subtract, and that less than zero, in monetary terms, is a problem.

I happen to think that precision matters, and getting your numbers straight can be as important as getting your words straight. Otherwise we're all speaking different languages, and that tends to add up to nothing (nada, zilch) but a lot of confusion, and plenty of misunderstandings.

But so what, eh? Maybe it just makes things more interesting. I don't have to be precisely correct all the time. Really. After all, when I get a Sudoku puzzle wrong, I just toss it. (Of course I notice I'm wrong...) No, no, I mean it. It's almost New Year's, countdown starts soon, and then we'll all be in the same decade no matter how you count it.

So here's wishing you a grand and wonderful New Year, with innumerable decades to come.