What is the rule for determining the century that date corresponds to for 2,3, and four digit dates?

Question

s.s question. it is soooo hard

Answer 1

Well, a century is 100 years, so you expect to have 3 digits and above. I am not sure where you got 2.

Anyway, the first century begins at 1 AD.

The second century is 101 AD.

3rd century = 201 AD

4th century = 301 AD

5th century = 401 AD

6th century = 501 AD

7th century = 601 AD (I hope you get the point that the numbers on the right side of the equation bar is one step lower than the numbers on the left side.)

This goes on to the tenth century, which is 900 AD, which ends at 1001 AD.

So, the twentieth century is 1900 AD.

And the 21st century is 2001 AD, because we begin at the 21st. Funny, but we celebrated the new millenium on the year 2000. So the general rule is this: we don't count up to 100; we count starting from 1 as the first century.

Hope this helps!

Similarly you can do the same thing for B.C. The only difference is that you would be counting backwards! So, the first century BC is actually from 1 BC to 101 BC.

Just think: AD means postive numbers. BCE means negative numbers. ad means uncalibrated dates. bc means uncalibrated dates. AD and BC/BCE mean calibrated dates.

By the way, the correct form is BCE, because not everybody is Christian. AD refers to the years after Christ's birthday, December 25, 1 AD. So, now Christ would be 2008 years old, if he lived on earth.