Stu's Letters Book

From Stuart Oliver 10/11/1999 The Editor Re: Weird Ideas! I am frequently amazed by letters such as that submitted by John Hully (Community Opinion 9 Nov 1999) indicating that the year 2000 does not start until 2001. They seem to believe that the period between 0 and 1 does not exist. A year is broken up into months, days, hours, minutes. Therefore you can have a part of a year. Following their line of thinking is to say that a child does not exist until it turns 1! It does not become 1 day old, 1 month old, and etc, until it turns 1. You cannot equate shots in a cricket match as there is no part within the shot; you cannot have a tenth or a half of a shot (as much as some would probably like too!). Like the child who starts at zero and grows by hours and days until 1, and so on until it is 2, etc; the year starts at zero and develops by day until it reaches that first target of 1. At present we are currently in the 2000 th year, but do not reach the 2000 until midnight on New Year's eve; at that time we are at the beginning of the first year of the next 1000 years and, as always, have to live day by day for 12 months before we reach that 1! I hope this helps to enlighten those many confused people out there. Yours sincerely Stuart Oliver 64a Towncentre Drive Thornlie WA 6108 64a Towncentre Drive, Thornlie, WA, Australia, 6108 Phone: (08) 9455 6717 Fax: (08) 9456 1614 Email: stuarto@upnaway.com