The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1900-01-19
DR.. BISHOPS YEAR ZERO.
HAS NO EXISTENCE BUT IN HIS
MIND.
A Correspondent From Kauai Shows
it is Not a Year But a Mere Point Of
Division.


century began with the first day of
January, 1900
Let us follow the reasoning of Mr..
Bishop. He first says, ut seems to me
that the base of our Lords birth must
be represented not by A. D. but by A.
d. o."
In this he is right and wrong; he is
right so far as the moment of the birth
corresponds to in it's accepted arith-
metical position, but he is wrong when
he says, that our Lords birth is repre-
sented by year, be it A. d. l or any
other number.
1t is not correct, or at least, we did
not know, that the first 1866 days of
life are called year o. We always
thought in our simplicity that they rep
resented and are called year one or first
year. So the 1S99th year means for ev-
erybody with common sense really the
year 1899 and not 1900, just as the year
SO of a mans age means his 99th year.
This man must have completed the last
day of his Goth year before he enters
his Tooth year of age. But the first day
afterwards he will be in his Tooth year,
though being only 80 years and a frac-
ton of a day old.
The arithmetical example given in the
4th example shows clearly where the
error came in. is no number, but a
symbol for-nothing-ka eXocheen (to
use the English equivalents of the
Greek letters). 1t has no dimensions
whatever and there cannot represent
anything, neither a year, nor an apple,
nor anything else, it is simply zero.
It's use as a dividing point or line be-
tween the minus and plus series does
not give it the function of a number.
Thus strike out the A. d. or b. c. of
Mr.. b. sentence and he is right. The
point of demarcation at the moment of
(our Lords) birth was 0. A point at
the moment, please, not year!
With this correction, the regular Sc
quence runs: B. c., 1 b. c., 0, 1 A. D.,
2 A. d. or in Roman computation 1Jz,
1853, 754, 755, u, c., where it does not
matter, whether your interpolate o or
plain comma between the series of z.
c. and A, d.
The algerberaic notation 81, OIL,
70 is not very conclusive for Mr.. BIS
thesis; if we acknowledge that under
certain circumstances from minus one
to plus one is two, we only wonder why
Mr.. BIS reckoning does not apply here
according to it, it should be three!
From the first hour of the year l B.
G.. to the midnight of 81 Dec. 1 A. d. 1t
makes 2 years, as Mr.. B. justly guesses,
but from midnight 81 Dec. l b. c. to
midnight 81 Dec. l A. d. it makes only
one year, whether you have 0 between
or not. Put instead of the cipher its
value nothing, and you will see why.
That it is so, proves the analogy of
the thermometer. There you have got
a point or line of demarcation from
which you count in both directions,
| and starting from this point or bar, the
/ no hn 10
above and below mot the bars them
selvesD are called Degree No. l, plus
or minus, according to their position
| Fahrenheit and Reamuur or Celsius
! thermometers side by side illustrate
very nicely the computation of Roman
and Christian era)
So the year on each side of the divid-
ing line of the Christian era( our Lords
BIRTH is called year / A. d. or b. c. ac-
cording to their position.
This excludes period so counted 9TH
erwise as by beginning with l. AS to the
method of Mr.. b. to invent the 0 as the
beginning of a series, we think he would
be the first to object to its use, wlan
settling a bill, he would be obliged 20
call the first dollar he pays, 0.
| Finally let us translate what Camille
| FlammariOn, the well known star of
popular science writes about the same
object in the Partisan Annales Litee, =
aires ct Politiques of Dec. 3, so:
"A series of ten, contains 10 unities,
! series of 100, one hundred unities. The
number 100 is part of this series.
THUS there has never been a year 0
in this Christian era. The first year Of
this era has been year one.
when Jesus Christ was born, no.
body grasped the Importance of this
a..lf he.
to found, would assume in the political
history of the peoples. The year of his
birth passed unnoticed by the Romans
as well as by the Jews and even the
first five centuries did not find any
place in the calendars of their times. 1t
was only in the year 532 that a Chcs-
ton era was proposed by a priest of the
Roman church, Denys, a Saythian, who
| was known as DyOnisius eXiginus-lit-
tie Denys-on account of his small
stature.
This man instituted the Christian
era and only in the sixth century, as
you see. He supposed that Christ was
born the IS December OF the year 753
after the foundation of Rome. The year
754 became the first year of the Chris
tian era This first year even in the idea
of Denys was not the year of Christs
birth, it's beginning was posterior OF
seven days of this birth.
In his historical researches, Denys
made an error of 4 years, easy to prove
as the date Of the death of Herodis is
exactly known. Christ was born in the
year 749 u. G. and not in 1853 and died
at the age of thirtysiX and not at the
age of thirty Consequently the
Christian era is years too young, but
evidently it would be troublesome "a
make correction
Although Deny's error has been rec
ognized as such since several centuries
the Christian era was accepted, as
Denys proposed it. But whatever date
has been adopted as beginning Of the
Christian era, there has never been
year 0. Therefore the first year, was
the year one, and the tenth year. the
year 10, and the ,hundredth year of q
century year 100.
This problem cannot leave shadow
of doubt i'm the spirit of the reader
I nj. ,I,ft IN, 1.