|
Have you
fallen for the Millenium 2000 hoax?
Questions? contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
There has been a lot of hoopla about "entering into the next
Millennium" and the dawn of the "21st century" and entering the 3rd
millennium. A lot of companies and politicians are making a great deal of money
by promoting this view. Cities are
spending millions of taxpayer dollars to celebrate this event. The
only problem is that according to the Royal Observatory Greenwich (http://www.rog.nmm.ac.uk) "the New
Millennium and the New Century start at zero hours UTC (commonly known as GMT)
on January 1st 2001." (refer also to the US Naval Observatory http://www.usno.navy.mil). The sad
truth is that most people know the truth, but the financial and political gain
in manipulating people is just to big for many for businesses and
politicians to pass up. Some are spending
thousands of dollars on special trips and hotels and they don't even know
that they are being swindled.
Why is the New Millennium on January 1st
2001?
There are a variety of ways people mark time1. Our
current system is based on the Solar calendar where the day (based on the
rotation of the Earth on its axis), the year (based on the revolution of the
Earth around the Sun), and the month (based on the revolution of the Moon around
the Earth). According to our Gregorian calendar2 we begin counting
forward from January 1, 1 Anno Domini ("The Year of our Lord" or "AD"). The
significance here is that there is no such thing as year zero. Historical time
is counted from "December" of 1 BC to "January" of 1 AD. That is, time is
considered to have gone from "New Years Eve" 1 BC to "New Years Day" 1 AD.
Here is an example then of how we would count time:
year 1 to year 11 is the completion the 10th year.
When year 101 arrived we completed the 100th year.
When the year 1001 arrived we completed the 1000th year.
Thus when January 1st year 2001 arrives we will only
then complete the 2000th year!
How many days are in a Millennium?
The First Millennium (January 1 - December 1000 AD)
consisted of 365,250 days.
Our current millennium (January 1001 - December 2000 AD)
will consist of 365,237 days.
At present, the Third Millennium (January 2001 -
December 3000 AD) will consist of 365,242 days.
What is a Century?
Let's look at it from another perspective. Have you ever
noticed that we
now live in the 20th century yet the numerical date on our
calendars start
with the numbers 19xx (for example we are now in year 1999 AD)?
Here we
can see that each century is denoted by a number one sequence
higher than
the actual date number.
Here is why.
The 1st century began with January, 1 AD (not "0" AD) and
finished with December, 100 AD.
The 2nd century began with January, 101 AD and ended in
December, 200 AD.
Thus our nomenclature for the century is numerically superior
to the actual
date.
This is why the 20th century began with January, 1901 AD and
will end on New Years Eve of the year 2000, and the 21st century will then begin
on New Years day 2001.
If January 1st 2000 is not the new millennium, then
why do politicians and the media still say publicize it that way?
The conclusion of the Royal Observatory Greenwich (http://www.rog.nmm.ac.uk) "The year AD 2000
will certainly be celebrated, as is natural for a year with such a round number
but, accurately speaking, we will be celebrating the 2000th year or the last
year of the millennium, not the start of the new millennium. Whether this will
be an excuse for more celebrations in the following year will have to be
seen!"
Their last statement is most instructive. Politicians and the
like are using this common misunderstanding to gain political and financial
advantage. They are selling all their millennium products now in hopes of being
able to sell even more next year. Don�t be fooled or let others fall into this
trap.
Does this information impact any possible computer Y2K
problems?
In short, no. This does not change any of the potential
problems with computers because their possible failure is based on the year 00
and what we call year 00 does not matter in computer language.
Why is the celebration of human birthdays different than
historical celebrations?
Some may wonder then why for human birthdays the 10th birthday
is actually
the tenth year the 20th birthday is the 20th year, etc...
The answer is that for chronological tracking of human age, we
generally regard birth as age "0" then each birthday does mark the accurate year
of life. The 1st birthday is a full year of life, the 10 birthday is
a full 10th year of life and so on�
The big difference then between human birthdays and historical
dates is that we do not date the age of history the same as we date the age of
individuals because history does not have a year "0"
Questions? contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Other Resources:
Center for Millennial Studies - http://www.mille.org/indexA.html
See also Millennium
321 which is a bit more camercialized, but eventually gets to the truth.
----------------------------------------------
1 There are an infinite number of ways people have tried to mark time. The 3
major systems are as follows. "A solar calendar, of which the Gregorian
calendar in its civil usage is an example, is designed to maintain synchrony
with the tropical year. To do so, days are intercalated (forming leap years) to
increase the average length of the calendar year. A lunar calendar,
such as the Islamic calendar, follows the lunar phase cycle without regard for
the tropical year. Thus the months of the Islamic calendar systematically shift
with respect to the months of the Gregorian calendar. The third type of
calendar, the lunisolar calendar, has a sequence of months based on the
lunar phase cycle; but every few years a whole month is intercalated to bring
the calendar back in phase with the tropical year. The Hebrew and Chinese
calendars are examples of this type of calendar."
The Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac, P.
Kenneth Seidelmann, editor from University Science Books, Sausalito, CA 94965
10/7/99 http://astro.nmsu.edu/~lhuber/leaphist.html
Questions? contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
< Return to
Top
2 "Early in the 6th century AD, Dionysius Exiguus (Denys the Little), a monk
and astronomer from Scythia now SW Russia, compiled a table of dates for Easter
in terms of the Diocletion calendar. He decided to reset the system of counting
years to honour the birth of Christ so that the year 248 Anno Diocletiani
became the year 532 Anni Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, known as 532 AD for
short. In his scheme he believed that Christ was born on the 25th of December of
the year preceding the start of the year 1 AD. From our modern point of view,
Dionysius Exiguus made two errors. Firstly and quite understandably, he left out
the year zero, because the number zero had not yet been `discovered' in the
West. His second error was in thinking that Christ was born at the end of the
year 1BC. Modern research indicates that Christ was probably born in 6BC and
certainly by 4BC when Herod died.
The idea of naming years BC was introduced by Bede in the 8th century. Naming
years in the Christian Era came into common use in ecclesiastical circles in the
Middle Ages but was not adopted for civil use until later."
Royal Observatory
Greenwich http://www.rog.nmm.ac.uk/leaflets/new_mill.html
The Gegorian system was proposed by Aloysius Lilius, a physician from Naples,
and adopted by Pope Gregory XIII in accordance with instructions from the
Council of Trent (1545-1563) to correct for errors in the older Julian Calendar.
It was decreed by Pope Gregory XIII in a papal bull in February 1582 that 10
days should be dropped from October 1582 so that 15 October should follow
immediately after 4 October. This change was to adjust for the errors of the
Julian calendar but maintains the same year of origin at 1 AD.
Questions? contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<
Return to Top
-------------------------------------------------------------
Related News Stories
N E W
Y O R K, Oct. 7 �Along with heated
exchanges about whether Y2K will bring apocalyptic doom or merely global
economic chaos on Jan. 1, the Internet is buzzing these days with a more mundane
but no less passionate debate.
Is it really the start of a new millennium?
Actually, no, based on the Gregorian calendar, which is why the constant barrage
of the word �millennium� in advertising and the media seems to be bugging a
growing number of critics.
�We kept hearing from
people who were everything from a little miffed to downright angry about all the
media hype about the new millennium,� said Larry Smith, co-founder of the
Millennium 321 Web site, which bills itself as The Official Web site of the New
Millennium.
�We were getting teachers from schools
saying, �How do we get the word out because we�re teaching our children wrong,��
Smith said. He and Web site co-founder James Iacobucci conducted a global online
survey that suggests most people�at least those logging on at their site�are
aware that the millennium actually begins on Jan. 1, 2001, they said.
At last count, 84 percent of the more than 8,700
people who responded pegged 2001 correctly as the start of the third millennium
despite all the hype to the contrary. �Underneath this surface of marketing
there is a population of people that are not buying into it,� Smith said.
Questions? contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<
Return to Top
Ringing in the New Year
Early
Boston Will
Celebrate on Greenwich Mean Time
The Associated Press
B O S T O N, Sept. 22 � Cities across the country
are jockeying for the best, the earliest, or the priciest millennial New Year
celebrations.
Boston, for
example, is poised to beat everyone in the United States to the New Year by
celebrating with fireworks five hours early � at midnight Greenwich Mean Time.
In Maine, they�re fighting for the distinction of
which town will be the first to see the sunrise of the new millennium.
�There are all sorts of little controversies over
who is first and who deserves the title of first,� said David Kessler, executive
administrator of the Center for Millennial Studies. �Part of it is just the
intuitive idea that the millennium is too perfect of a marketing ploy to pass
up.�
Boston officials say they orchestrated their 7
p.m. fireworks for the first time this year so children might participate in
revels usually well past their bedtimes. (There will still be midnight
pyrotechnics here for the purists.)
The evening
fireworks also give people who are fearful of a Y2K cataclysm, such as computer
meltdowns and electric surges, a chance to party and return home by midnight,
organizers said Wednesday � 100 days before the big night.
Boston�s early bird celebration will coincide with
midnight in Greenwich, England, which is the universally accepted standard of
world time, Mayor Thomas Menino said.
In truth, New
Year�s Day actually first begins at the international dateline in the Pacific
Ocean, 12 hours before it reaches Greenwich. But fireworks at 7 a.m. over Boston
Harbor just wouldn�t have the same panache.
Los
Angeles is making no pretenses about the 4 p.m., Pacific time, start of its
taxpayer-funded $1 million New Year�s Eve party. It�s an effort to get national
attention.
�It�s complicated, because at 12
midnight, it�s 3 a.m. in New York, so who�s going to be watching our
celebration?� Mayor Richard Riordan said.
In Maine,
the tiny town of Lubec believed it had the lock on the first place in America to
see the sun rise each day. Then the U.S. Naval Observatory declared that the
summit of Cadillac Mountain, just outside Bar Harbor, would be the first place
in the country to see the dawn on Jan. 1.
After
enough Lubec complaints, the Naval observatory recalculated to find that
sunlight on Jan. 1 will hit both Cadillac Mountain and Lubec�s Porcupine
Mountain at precisely the same time: 7:04 a.m.
In
Las Vegas, some 750,000 partygoers are expected to come to town for New Year�s
Eve. Problem is, the city only has 120,000 hotel rooms, and many of those are
going for thousands of dollars a night, rates unimaginable other times of the
year.
Caesars Palace will be charging $2,000 a
night, with a four-night minimum, or $3,500 a night with a three-night minimum.
Rooms usually are between $125 and $500. Bellagio, one of the newer hotels, will
charge $2,000 a night, with a three-night minimum � up from the $129 a night
some rooms go for on less festive nights. 
Questions? contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<
Return to Top
Pay Up for New Year�s
Hotels are Charging Big Bucks for End-of-Year
Guests
By Angie Wagner
The Associated Press
L A S V E G A S, Sept. 24
� Talk about no room at the inn.
Some 750,000 partygoers are expected to pour into Las Vegas this New
Year�s Eve to ring in the new millennium. Problem is, the city only has 120,000
hotel rooms, and many of those are going for thousands of dollars a night �
rates unimaginable other times of the year.
In
fact, nearly everything in Vegas that night � from concerts to air fare � might
require a lot of luck at the gambling tables.
�It�s
all accelerated because of the demand. That�s kind of the American way,� said
Mark Paris, president of the Fremont Street Experience, a downtown attraction.
Caesars Palace will be charging $2,000 a night,
with a four-night minimum, or $3,500 a night with a three-night minimum. Rooms
there usually are between $125 and $500. Bellagio, one of the newer hotels, will
charge $2,000 a night, with a three-night minimum � up from the $129 a night
some rooms go for on less festive nights.
Even the
family-oriented, usually affordable Circus Circus is bumping its room rates from
about $39 a night to $450 with a four-night minimum.
Concert Tickets
Included?
Many hotels are already sold out for New Year�s Eve, but
that isn�t likely to deter tourists from spending the holiday in this gambling
mecca. This year�s crowd estimate is almost double the number of people who came
here to ring in 1999.
Those who don�t get a hotel
room probably won�t sleep at all.
Las Vegas isn�t
alone in its outrageous prices. Hotels in other millennial hot spots such as New
York, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Honolulu are also upping their rates.
At the New York Hilton and Towers, on Sixth Avenue,
a standard room for Dec. 31 is $550 per night, with a three-night minimum stay.
A standard room is usually half that. At the Plaza 50 on 50th Street, a studio
suite that normally rents for $299 a night is $448 on New Year�s Eve, with a
four-night minimum stay required.
�The large urban
hotels are offering New Year�s Eve revelers packages that are commensurable with
the kind of entertainment that is being offered,� said Jim Gallagher, spokesman
for Starwood Hotels and Resorts, which operates the Sheraton and Westin chains.
�We certainly think that any of Starwood�s properties are giving their guests
real value for their money.�
The prices for rooms
in major cities usually include tickets to a concert or some other type of
entertainment for New Year�s Eve, he said.
�Going
Fast�
Marc Grossman, spokesman for Hilton Hotels, said demand for
lodging in prime locales is driving prices higher.
�Rooms are going fast,� he said. �The places that you would imagine that are New
Year�s headquarters are going to get premium pricing.�
Back in Las Vegas, just about every concert, party
and even the airlines are following the hotels� lead.
The price tag to party downtown under the canopy of
the Fremont Street Experience block party is $100 � 10 times what it cost last
year.
�New Year�s can get a little bit rowdy. The
thinking is that the cover charge would keep out some people that may be a
little bit more rowdy and try to make it a little bit more controllable,� said
Dawn Christensen, a city spokeswoman.
Bally�s Las
Vegas is offering a �Time Tunnel� party for a mere $300 ($250 for hotel guests).
Pricey yes, but it does include a buffet, party hat and a horn.
Too Ritzy for Some
Tickets to New Year�s Eve concerts with the likes of Elton John,
Tina Turner, Bette Midler and Rod Stewart cost upwards of $100 and most of those
shows are already sold out.
Just getting to the
party is costing travelers from the East Coast big bucks. They are paying $2,500
to $3,000 for airfare and a four-night stay at less ritzy hotels, said Mary
Baltodano, a travel agent with Creative Travel in Las Vegas. These package trips
normally cost only several hundred dollars a person.
Baltodano books them � with a hint of disgust.
�This is outrageous. I can�t believe people are
purchasing them,� Baltodano said.
While clearly
some don�t mind paying inflated prices to revel in happening places, to others
it seems a bit frivolous.
�I don�t make enough
money to blow it like that,� Janis Anderson, 43, of San Antonio, Texas, said as
she dropped quarters into a slot machine at the Las Vegas Hilton.
Questions? contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<
Return to Top
Chasing the Year 2000
When One New Year�s Eve Isn�t Enough
By Bill
Brewster
ABCNEWS.com
For some people, one New
Year�s Eve isn�t good enough. They have to go for two.
A whole class of millennium-maniacal
travelers is springing up, and its members want to be among both the first and
the last to welcome in the year 2000. Folks are planning different trips, but
all involve traveling over the international date line bisecting the Pacific
Ocean.
These faux time travelers are bent
(some very bent) on rigging up a flight from the western (Asian) side of
the date line to the eastern (North American) side. If they depart in the early
hours of Jan. 1, they�ll land sometime on Dec. 31 and get to see the year 2000
dawn a second time.
(Click on the image above for
the dateline-hopping plans of four ABCNEWS.com readers.)
It�s not easy. Major airlines don�t play the
time-travel game; commercial flights from Asia and the South Pacific generally
take off in the evening and land in the morning of the same day.
That isn�t stopping the time trackers. Neither do
they worry about the Y2K computer bug, even though developing island nations
seem like probable candidates for any problems with air traffic computers
rolling into 2000.
Will they be shattered if their
Jan. 1 flight to Samoa or wherever doesn�t take off? More importantly, why go to
all that effort and expense?
Catching the First
Sunrise
Katharina Lang, a 29-year-old from Virginia Beach, isn�t
planning to go for two New Year�s Eves, but she feels the allure of being among
the first to greet the new
millennium.
She
plans to take a vacation from her job at a behavioral medicine clinic and head
for a beach in Tonga to watch the sun rise on Jan. 1. Why Tonga? It�s later
there than almost anywhere else on Earth, at 13 hours after Greenwich Mean Time.
�I want to go for the natural beauty, but also
because it�s such a momentous time,� explains Lang. �It�s a milestone not just
in my life, but in our generation�s life and for many generations to come. I
think it�ll be a cleansing time to be there � it�s a time for looking ahead.�
Of course, tourism officials in Pacific island
nations have long realized that many travelers will throw huge amounts of money
in a quest to greet the New Year before anyone else. They�ve been promoting the
hell out of �first midnights� or �first dawns� for years now.
The Politics of
Datelines
Until 1995, Tonga was going to be the first nation where
the clocks struck midnight, and the Chatham Islands off the eastern coast of New
Zealand would have been the first inhabited place to see the sun rise in 2000.
(Though the clock is behind Tonga, the Chathams are farther south and get much
longer days during the Southern Hemisphere summer).
But then the insignificant island nation of Kiribati � which sprawls across 2
million square miles of the Pacific Ocean � decided to put all its atolls on the
same side of the international date line, which now means that a small island
called Caroline will be first on both counts. It�s one of several Kiribati
islands in a time zone an hour ahead of Tonga, and it will catch the sun�s rays
about 20 minutes before the Chathams.
Some folks
cried foul (with some reason: Caroline Island is actually east of Hawaii but a
whole day ahead), but as the Royal Greenwich Observatory decreed, �There seems
to be no legal reason why any country cannot declare itself to be in whatever
time zone it likes.� Especially since the line is not governed by international
treaties or formal agreements.
The truly compulsive
(deranged, obscenely wealthy �) can actually beat Kiribati to first light by
more than two hours. Way south of New Zealand, the Balleny Islands lie right
around the Antarctic Circle, and on Dec. 31, the sun sinks below the horizon for
only about an hour a day. All you have to do to get to these windswept rocks is
pilot an icebreaker through unrelenting pack ice, avoid harming any penguins
under penalty of massive fines, and hope that you don�t get an earthquake like
the magnitude 7.9 one that emanated from the area in March 1998. Sounds fun,
huh?
Or you could go to the South Pole and watch
the sun come up around Sept. 23 if you�re that obsessed. It won�t set again
until March.
Then there are those who say you have
to go Greenwich where midnight signals the arrival of the planet Earth as a
whole into the year 2000 in �universal time� � but we crossed from the sublime
to the ridiculous long ago.
A trip to the South
Pacific next December sounds sweet, but rather than scrambling for a second New
Year�s Eve you should probably just concentrate on doing the first one right.
Questions? contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<
Return to Top
| 
reuters_green.gif
millennium_dot.gif
?Page=Hoax2000.htm|Image=4