A year after a worldwide premature celebration of the new millennium, we simply got excited a year too soon, declared Frank Morgan, professor of mathematics at Williams College.
"The new millennium starts Jan. 1, 2001," he said.
"It's exactly like birthdays. You don't have your first birthday until you complete one year. You don't start the 21st Century until you complete 2000 years, and that doesn't happen until Dec. 31."
So why did the world go bonkers about 366 days ago?
"I think the people in 1900 understood the science and logic better than people today," he told United Press International. "People today aren't as patient and want things to happen faster."
"People get excited when they see digits roll over," he continued. "When your car's odometer changes to 10,000 miles people get excited; they get excited when the 1999 in the corner of the checkbook turns to 2000, but it is still not the new millennium."
Morgan explained, "Our calendar was established to make the year 1 A.D. the first year after Jesus' birth. Hence 2000 is the 2000th year; the last year of the second millennium, and 2001 begins the third millennium."
Apparently, Morgan isn't alone in recognizing the end of the century occurs Sunday night. Many government postal agencies – including those in Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, France, Lithuania, Russia and Slovenia – are issuing commemorative stamps for the new millennium.
The Czech post office declared its cat-and-mouse stamp, issued in October, as its "final stamp of the millennium." Similarly, Hong Kong's stamp, a hologram of the famous Hong Kong skyline, will come out Dec. 31.
"They got it right," said Morgan, who concluded that basically, "we spent all of 2000 celebrating the final year of the 20th century."
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