“They,” i.e. the catholic church, or whoever was tasked with coming up with a calendar, absolutely understood the concept of zero in the 1500’s. Yes, Zero took a bit longer to formalize and enter the zeitgeist of the public consciousness, but this myth of zero being some kind of unknowable thing for thousands of millennia is naive.
I’d go so far as to say that a year zero in a calendar is useless. There should be a starting point of course, but calling it yero zero instead of year 1 is dumb.
But you are missing the point,. There is no reason to ever start a calendar at year zero. The starting point can be zero, fine, but once the first day goes by, you are in the first day of year 1, not year zero and that is logical and has nothing to do with smart astronomers etc, “not understanding the number zero.”
At this point I’d say the only person who doesn’t understand zero is you.
“They,” i.e. the catholic church, or whoever was tasked with coming up with a calendar, absolutely understood the concept of zero in the 1500’s. Yes, Zero took a bit longer to formalize and enter the zeitgeist of the public consciousness, but this myth of zero being some kind of unknowable thing for thousands of millennia is naive.
I’d go so far as to say that a year zero in a calendar is useless. There should be a starting point of course, but calling it yero zero instead of year 1 is dumb.
By that part, I was referring to the people establishing the Julian Calendar, not the Gregorian. I’ve edited my comment to clarify that.
But you are missing the point,. There is no reason to ever start a calendar at year zero. The starting point can be zero, fine, but once the first day goes by, you are in the first day of year 1, not year zero and that is logical and has nothing to do with smart astronomers etc, “not understanding the number zero.”
At this point I’d say the only person who doesn’t understand zero is you.