The Shaws wrote:
> Many of us find it difficult to understand how it was possible to manage
> without a zero - but it is interesting to note that we still use a "no zero"
> system when numbering the days of the month.
>
> There is no December 0.
>
> We call the first day of the month :- "the first" - just like the ancients
> called the first year AD - "the first year" and the Romans time system
> referred to "the first hour" etc..
Maybe this is getting too off-topic, but here I go complementing what Mike says:
In Portuguese we always say (or should say, because computer have changed
things) "The first of... month name". But we never say "the second", "the
third", etc.
So we just jump from ordinal to cardinal for no apparent reason.
We also say "the first hour of the something", but we never say the "second"...
For popes and kings we always go from "first" to "ninth" but then we go to
"ten", "eleven", etc.
For children we used to say: "a child in her first year" (that is, before
her first aniversary). It seems doctors now say the equivalent of
"0-year old" as opposed to "first year".
The same is true for programming language. Usually COBOL,
FORTRAN and BASIC (the real thing, created in 1964 at
the Dartmouth College) do not use zero as an index of a matrix
or vector. Nevertheless (which is younge4r) C does.
We can survive without using the cipher. But it seems as we get more
sophisticated people make it a necessity.
- fernando
>
> So, be careful to call today December 28th - "December the twenty eighth"
> and not December 28 - "December twenty eight"
> 28 days will not have elapsed until midnight tonight - at the end of the
> twenty eighth day of December. As indeed 2000 years will not have elapsed
> until midnight at the end of December 31st 2000.
>
> Working without a zero isn't all that hard, we do it all the time.
>
> Mike
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 53.37N 3.02W
> Wirral, UK
--
Fernando Cabral Padrao iX Sistemas Abertos
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pix.com.br
Fone Direto: +55 61 329-0206 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
PABX: +55 61 329-0202 Fax: +55 61 326-3082
15º 45' 04.9" S 47º 49' 58.6" W
19º 37' 57.0" S 45º 17' 13.6" W
