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Anno Domini
Some years ago, people talked very much about
"The end of 20th century and the beginning
of 21st century." The money greed industries
took chances, twice big sales events. Do
you know "H.D."? Hegira calendar.
A.D.622 is H.D. 1. There are quite number
of ways to notate the calendar year. We Japanese
had had our own one. 1940 was 2600. There
were great festivals and parades all over
Japan. These are at least the decimal notations.
Chinese and Japanese had had for many years
a duodecimal system of notations. Twelve
horary signs. The year of the Dragon for
example. The duodecimal system is not at
all unusual. 12 inches make 1 foot. A set
of teacups is 12 pieces. Japanese teacup
set is 10 pieces by the way. Today we are
in IT age. Computer applies the binary system,
i.e. all the numbers are notated with 0 and
1. "2005" is "11111010101".
It has taken so many lines to tell you that
the notating number, year 2000 or year 2005
has no divine or Christian meaning. We need
not investigate if A.D.1 was the year when
J.X. was born or not. You can create a new
calendar system, for example to begin with
the first Olympic year 776 B.C. as A.O. 1.
Perhaps we have no reason to shift from B.C.-A.D.
system to A.O. calendar. But we have no reason
to be troubled by multiple notating systems.
I can't find any good reason that this New
Year we celebrate is both 2005 and Heisei
17. The year of the Cock. A Happy
New Year ! !! !!!
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