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- COLOMBO (Reuters) - Arthur
C. Clarke, author of "2001: A Space Odyssey," feels so strongly
about people calling next year a new millennium that he issued a public
statement this week to correct them.
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- "Because the Western calendar starts with Year 1,
and not Year 0, the 21st Century and the Third Millennium do not begin
until January 1, 2001," Clarke said in a statement on Thursday.
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- "Though some people have great difficulty in grasping
this, there's a very simple analogy which should appeal to everyone. If
the scale on your grocer's weighing machine began at 1 instead of 0, would
you be happy when he claimed he'd sold you 10 kg of tea?" Clarke questioned.
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- "And it's exactly the same with time. We'll have
had only 99 years of this century by January 1, 2000: we'll have to wait
until December 31 for the full hundred."
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- Clarke's view has long been held by people who doubt
that anyone else can count. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, for
example, made the same point in 1997-- only to be called the party pooper
of the century in newspapers.
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- Clarke said the psychological effect of the three zeros
and the Y2K bug that will affect computers was much too powerful to be
ignored. "So everyone will start celebrating at midnight December
31, 1999," Clarke said, adding that 2000 should be called the Centennial
Year and 2001 the Millennial Year.
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- British-born Clarke, who has lived in Colombo for more
than 30 years, is the author of scores of novels and science-fiction books
and the creator of several documentaries.
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- In the last half century, many of Clarke's predictions
have come true, including his then-controversial 1945 outline of a network
of geo-stationary communication satellites.
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