January 22, 1999
Two University of Kansas faculty members cheerfully disagree on whether the new millennium begins in 2000 or 2001, but both blame the zero for the confusion.
Saul Stahl, professor of mathematics, and Oliver Phillips, a retired professor of Western civilization, agree the problem is that the zero didn't exist when the first millennium was charted in the sixth century.
Stahl will celebrate the third millennium's arrival on Jan. 1, 2000. Phillips plans to wait until Jan.1, 2001.
Stahl smiles and says, "The first millennium is one year short. There is no year zero. Who says a millennium has to have 1,000 years?"
Phillips takes another view: "People forget how to count." His father was a young adult in 1899. "I remember him talking about a similar confusion, whether the 20th century began in the year 1900 or 1901.
Most people celebrated 1901 as the beginning of the 20th century. Kaiser Wilhelm in Germany, however, declared the new century began in 1900," Phillips says.
The first millennium was some 600 or 800 years old when the concept of zero was invented in India. When religious debate about the year of Christ's birth sent monks in search of an answer, "those guys didn't know about zero," says Stahl, who teaches history of mathematics in his courses.
It wasn't until the 13th century that the concept of zero filtered into Western civilization -- some 700 years after a monk, Dionysius Exiguus, suggested that the years be counted from the birth of Jesus, which he designated as A.D. 1, Stahl says.
Before Dionysius Exiguuus, also known as Dionysius the Small, made his proclamation, Romans had been content to date time from the founding of Rome. When Greeks needed to date time they used the Olympiads, Phillips says.
Hindu mathematicians not only used zero but invented the numerals commonly used worldwide for business and other calculations.
In teaching the history of mathematics, Stahl has asked students to attempt to multiply and divide without zeros as the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans once did. The assignments leave 1990s students gasping for zeros.
The zero did two things, Stahl says. "It provided ease in writing down large numbers. A 'one' with a zero becomes 10, or 100 or 1,000 and so on. Secondly, the zero made it easy to manipulate large numbers -- multiplication and division."
Without a zero, Babylonians couldn't write two thousand and one in numerals. Romans might be able to write 2001, but got lost trying to multiply and divide all those X's and L's and C's.
"Zero gave us a symbol for nothing," Stahl says. "It is hard to imagine modern technology without zeros."
Phillips says, "There's just something about seeing all those zeros lined up in a row that excites people. As teen-agers, we would prepare to whoop and yell when the odometer in an old car turned over at 100,000 miles."
Phillips volunteers as a discussion leader for a Western civilization honors class that meets weekly at KU. Phillips said the confusion about whether 2000 or 2001 begins the millennium cropped up in discussion with that group last semester.
Story by Mary Jane Dunlap, University Relations, (785) 864-8853 or mjdunlap@ukans.edu