While I have no wish to spoil your readers' joy in trying to become pregnant on April 10 with the hope of having a baby on January 1 next year, may I offer a warning note to your front page story on January 8.

January 1 next year will not signal the start of the Millennium as I am sure the mathematicians and historians among your readers already realise.

The real Millennium comes on January 1, 2001. The confusion comes from the difference between the cardinal number system (those with which we measure and count) and the ordinal numbers. The latter are such numbers as 1st, 2nd and 3rd. In this system there never has been, or ever will be, a zero.

It would obviously be nonsense to say, for example that a horse was placed 0th in a race. These numbers are not subject to arithmetical operations, nor are they usually placed equally apart.

When we eventually write the date as 31/12/1999, all three numbers are ordinal and should be written 31st/12th/1999th. The following day we will enter the 2000th year and will remain in that year until the end of 31st/12th/2000th.

Only then will we enter the 2001st year and the next Millennium.

Have any of your readers opposing views, I wonder?

Martin Durham,

Cherrywood Crescent,

Fulford,

York.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.