THE NEW CENTURY QUESTION

Auckland Star, Issue 66, 19 March 1900, Page 2

THE NEW CENTURY QUESTION

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—Seeing so much correspondence re ! the new century, the, following extracts from the "Scientific American" of January 13th might throw some light on the matter:—

"When in 800 A.D. Charlemagne introduced the calendar which commences with the birth of Christ, he too thought he was commencing a new century. When Peter the Great decreed that our chronology should be used after the year 1700 he made a similar mistake. Throughout the world those two ciphers have deceived men. And the error has been handed down to our day. Lord Kelvin, great mathematician as he is, also holds the same view. The Emperor William has decided (ex cathedra) that the new century begins January Ist, 1900, but this delusion is hereditary, as he shares it with his grandfather, the late Prince Consort, who was of the same opinion. The Roman Church, which has always paid great attention to the calendar, and has done

much to preserve it, has decided that the year 1900 should be a year of jubilee as being- the last of the century.' The problem is not so easily solved as may be imagined. It is evident that there was never a year 0, that the- century must beS in with al;it is equally evident that even as a dollar contains 100 cents, a century is composed of 100 years. But then there arises the confusion of numbers, and the contradiction between the ordinal and the cardinal. When an Italian speaks of his cinquecento (rnille cinquecento, in other words) he refers not to the fifteenth but to the sixteenth century, and thus he writes all his centuries with a cardinal number ono less in value than the ordinal number in his mind. A hundred years ago the same wordy war was waged; a hundred years hence it will be renewed; and thus it will go on as century _._ti_. r century comes rolling along. It is a.venerable error, long-lived, and perhaps i_\_. mortal."—l am, etc.,

EDWARD T- FROST, jun.