The Anno Domini dating system and the Gregorian calendar that we now use are not zero-based numbering systems. There are no zeroth days, zeroth months or the zeroth year in these systems. That is because Europeans did not know zero as a number when they invented the AD dating system and the Roman calendar, the prototype of the Gregorian calendar. The numeral system we now use is, however, the zero-based decimal system. Identifying the time in reference to the current time system makes it difficult to calculate the functions whose variables include time. Although we should avoid unnecessary amendments, it is not desirable that we will continue to be bound by the numbering system which was formed when European mathematics was underdeveloped. Here I propose the best calendar that I can think of.

The original sense of “paradigm” is “exemplar” and Kuhn’s “paradigm” signifies such a textbook theory or an experiment method as students imitate as an exemplar in their scientific education. Normal science engages scientists in puzzle-solving based on a paradigm, which is more economically rational than the frequent revolutions. Even in scientific revolutions new paradigms succeed to the old ones continuously. What changes drastically in a revolution is not the paradigm itself but the balance of power between paradigms. Like political revolutions, scientific revolutions are the struggle for existence and paradigms do not shift to copy the reality better.