E.G. Bell2022 is a unique year in one respect I have not seen anyone else note. It is a triple-double. I think that is a sports-related term.
Having no real interest in sports, I’m not sure of the meaning in that context or even the sport involved. I think it is basketball. However, the triple-double I’m talking about has nothing to do with sports. It has to do with the year itself, and I spent a little time looking to see if it ever happened before or if there was any likelihood of it happening again.
You have to think in Roman numerals. This year is MMXXII. You can’t have consecutive occurrences of all of the Roman numeral symbols. Since you are allowed to have 3 consecutive roman numerals at most (for some of the symbols), you could have a double-triple. 3003 would be an example (MMMIII).
V(5), L(50), or D(500) cannot be used more than once in a number. The rules really make finding triple-doubles a lot of mental math. Word problems must have been a bear back then. Roman numerals also allow quadruple doubles. One of those will happen in 2222 (MMCCXXII). You might be learning that here for the very first time.
Roman numerals first appeared around 900 or 800 BC, or BCE. BCE is an acronym for Before Common Era. BC stood for ‘Before Christ’, but someone came to realize that there is no such time. Therefore a decision was made to differentiate eras, BEFORE COMMON and COMMON, and the delimiter was between year 1 BCE and year 1 CE. There were two consecutive year ones. That probably simplified writing checks in the second year 1 (I always mess up the year for the first few checks after a new year) but confusing in the second year 2. Especially for post-dated checks, if post-dated checks were allowed. It probably made balancing really difficult.
I can’t see how there could have been a triple-double before 222 BCE. (CCXXII). And it would have happened again in 222 CE. This may have gone unnoticed at the time. As I figure it, 2022 would have had to be the next one to occur. That makes this year very unique because there won’t be another one like there was in 222 CE. I don’t think it CAN happen again.
It seems very pessimistic that the people originally marking time counted years DOWN. I wonder what they had in mind when they reached zero. There is, of course, no year zero. There was no zero in the Roman numbering system.
This gave rise to another unique situation related to years, namely confusion about the end of a recent century. The new century did not start in 2000, it started in 2001 because there was no year zero. Of course, the whole kerfuffle around the year 2000 was the fault of computer programmers cramming the representation of a four-digit number into two digits. As a computer programmer, I was very busy from late 1998 until early 2000. It was a heady time anticipating and remediating. I wonder if the Romans had a Y-zero panic at the approach of year 1 (the first one) and starting over at one was their remediation.
Y2K (MM) had nothing special to do with Roman numerals. As mentioned above, they came into use around 900 or 800 BCE, well before computer programmers. In Roman numerals, that would have been CM or DCCC BCE. You can see how confusing that would have gotten. Numbers are easier to understand in our modern Arabic notation. However, I would not have discovered that 2022 is a triple-double without Roman numerals.
There are seven characters used to designate numbers in Roman numerics. I, V, X, L, C, D, and M. There are also rules for using them. You can Google all that or go directly to the link I referenced if you are really interested. It is a pleasantly short read. I like things like this. They make for interesting trivia at parties among people who are probably not much fun at parties. Or computer programmers. As an example, computer programmers have difficulty telling the difference between Halloween and Christmas because Oct 31 equals Dec 25 (if you understand Base 8 and Base 10 number systems you are certainly laughing out loud right now). We also see things in other things, like triple-double years. We work in different number systems and calendars. We’re often not fun at parties.
Roman numerals look great on tables of contents, watch and clock faces, and impressively important on movie copyright notices, contract and legal clauses, and names. (Charles III, Henry VIII, etc.) Occasionally, they cause hiccups. Remember Superbowl L a couple of years ago?
There are good reasons for things to move on. Roman numerals are still used for some ‘ornamental’ things but not in practical things. The building trades do not use them. Imagine measuring studs or calculating roof pitch using roman numerals. What would your tape measure look like? Imagine dialing a telephone. Or getting XX congius of gas? At CDXCVII Asses (Asses is plural of As) per congius. Or paying DLXXVIII (578) Denarii a month rent? (I bet a LOT of people would JUMP at a place costing DLXXVIII Denarii a month! (If Denarii was dollars)) Imagine doing your taxes with Roman numerals.
There has been a steady march of progress in virtually everything. Things change. Improve. Things had to change. ‘Always been done that way’ is a horrible reason to resist change. To fail to advance. Life is a lot easier today for the changes. There is nostalgia for the way things used to be done and reckoned. The proof is in the antique stores selling gewgaws and tchotchkes previous generations considered state-of-the-art. Prices are usually high for things long obsolete or discarded. The more obsolete, the higher the price. However, the price of clinging to those old ways of doing things and looking at things would have been much higher. I enjoy looking and having things of yesterday to look at but I’m glad history kept moving. MMXXII is one of history’s unique ways of considering 2022. It is probably the last triple-double year ever. Knowing this will probably not make you the life of a party.
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