Why the Year Isn’t Actually 2022

 by Isabella Frobisher

Within the last month, we have just celebrated the beginning of the New Year 2022. However, this date for the new year isn’t actually correct as for when the Roman Calendar was created the year for the birth of Jesus Christ was incorrectly used and there was no year zero between the BC and AD years. But why would such rookie mistakes occur with such a significant resource that we rely on daily? Well, it was vastly down to the denial of zero.

In the sixth century AD, a monk named Dionysius was given the task of extending the Easter tables (working out the day Easter would fall each year). Whilst Dionysius was doing this, he decided that he could work out the year Christ was born and base the calendar on his birth date. He figured out that the current year was 525 AD (which stands for anno Domini meaning 525 years on from our lord). However, Dionysius had actually made a crucial error here as he was actually 4 years off Christ’s birth date. This is because Mary and Joseph were fleeing King Herod when Mary gave birth to Jesus as King Herod had heard of a prophecy of a new Messiah. However, King Herod died in 4BC; so why would Mary and Joseph be fleeing from a King who had already been dead for 4 years when they gave birth to Jesus? Thus, Dionysius was 4 years out for the birth of Christ, which is supported with evidence from the time of Christ’s birth. Therefore, this pushes the current year, 4 years ahead based on the system Dionysius used. Thus, it is actually the year 2026. But there is also another factor contributing to which year it is; zero.

Zero has always been a controversial idea as it implies both the infinite and the void at once, which are two opposing ideas. There’s nothing or there’s everything. Thus, throughout the history of mankind it has been rejected by many academics of the time. At the time Dionysius created the calendar, zero wasn’t viewed as a number and therefore, wasn’t counted as a year. So if you think about today's calendar and view the AD years as positive numbers and the BC years as negative numbers, the years go …-2, -1, 1, 2… There’s no zero, which makes no sense in today’s counting system, especially as we like to start counting from zero such as 0 seconds or ground zero. But when we count out loud, we start with the number 1 then 2 then 3, we don’t use zero. Therefore, the number's cardinality (the number it arrives on the number line eg 1 is the first number and so on) and it’s ordinality are basically the same principle. But if you add zero to this, this is no longer the case as zero becomes the first number, 1 the second and so on. Therefore, a number's cardinality and ordinality aren’t the same when zero is included. Hence, this is the sole cause of the calendar problem and why zero wasn’t used when it should have been and therefore, actually causes the year to be three years ahead in contribution with the wrong birth date of Jesus Christ. Thus, the current year is technically 2025 not 2022. 

Nevertheless, why do we know about this obvious error but don’t correct it? Well, what year it is actually doesn’t matter as long as everything is consistent after that. We’ve all continued to make the same mistake of being three years off the actual year. So this mistake becomes inconsequential and not only that but astronomers (the people that the year matters the most to) decide to ignore human calendars altogether as they count days since January 1st 4713 BC. Thus, even though this seems like a huge flaw in how we measure time; it has a minor impact as we all continue to make the same mistake even though we are aware of it.

There’s a book that you can get from the school library that provides you with further details of this: Zero:The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife.