Comments on Puzzle #33365: You can count on it
By Brian Bellis (mootpoint)
peek at solution solve puzzle
quality: 
difficulty: 
solvability: line logic only
peek at solution solve puzzle
quality: difficulty: solvability: line logic only
Puzzle Description:
Count down to the new year(and a new decade?)
#1: Web Paint-By-Number Robot (webpbn) on Dec 30, 2019
Unpublished by mootpoint#2: Web Paint-By-Number Robot (webpbn) on Dec 30, 2019
Republished without change by mootpoint#3: Jota (jota) on Dec 30, 2019
Happy New year!#4: Bill Eisenmann (Bullet) on Dec 31, 2019
Happy New Year, all! But the new decade doesn't start until January 1, 2021 ...#5: Raymond Fuller (rfuller4) on Jan 7, 2020
So 2020 isn't in the twenties...#6: Joe (infrapinklizzard) on Jan 12, 2020 [SPOILER]
Centuries definitely start with 001 since there is no year 0. When you say the first century, that is the years 1-100. So the second century is 101-200 and the twentieth century is 1901-2000. The twenty-first century started on Jan 1, 2001.#7: Brian Bellis (mootpoint) on Jan 12, 2020 [SPOILER]
However, I have no problem with decades being from the "0" to the "9", after all we do call them the '80s and the '20s, etc. So the '80s would be from 1980-1989 with the '90s starting Jan 1, 1990.
Now if you were to refer to the hundred years as "the 1900s" I would agree that that would be from 1900-1999, but that is not the same as the 20th century.
Perhaps the first decade was only 9 years long and the first century was only 99 years long. Now all the decades, centuries, and millennia match the numbers.#8: Norma Dee (norm0908) on Jan 13, 2020
I wonder if our ancestors were in on the little joke when they decided "we'll call this year 1 and we'll give them something to argue about every 10 years".
I think you are right, Brian.#9: Joe (infrapinklizzard) on Jan 13, 2020 [SPOILER]
Ha ha.
But, no. It has all been cobbled together bit by retro-fitted bit. As I said on one of my puzzles set before 1AD:
===
The AD/BC era calendar was devised in 525 AD by Dionysius Exiguus. (Which wasn't 525 until he said so.) Before then*, years were usually counted in eras, which were usually based on the current reign of the local monarch. (E.g. in the third year of King Harald Bluetooth)
And since the use of zero didn't arrive in Europe until the 11th century (from the Hindi via the Arabs via Moorish Spain), a year 0 wouldn't have occurred to anyone for another 500+ years.
*Actually, we still technically count in an era - Dionysius Exiguus just standardized that era on the "year of the reign of our lord, Jesus Christ", "anno Domini nostri Jesu Christi" instead of the local monarch.
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