Two days ago, I asked:  When do you think the next 0-1-2-3 year will be?

What is a 0-1-2-3 year?

The simple answer is a 0-1-2-3 year, in our Western calendar, is a year that has the four digits 0, 1, 2 and 3 present, individually, without a repeat. Our current year, 2013, is such a year because it contains each of those four digits. The last such year was 1320, and the next 0-1-2-3 year will be . . . 2031 — eighteen (18) years from this year.

Why is this significant?

For starters, in all of time, if you use our Western calendar, there are only eighteen (count them – 18) years that are 0-1-2-3 years: none in the First Millennium; 1023, 1032, 1203, 1230, 1302 and 1320, for six (6) in the Second Millennium; 2013, 2031, 2103, 2130, 2301 and 2310, for six (6) in our present Third Millennium; and 3012, 3021, 3102, 3120, 3201 and 3210, for six (6) in the Fourth Millennium; and then no more 0-1-2-3 days for the rest of time.

From 1 AD to the year 10,000 AD, there are only eighteen (18) 0-1-2-3 years. In fact, in all of the Arabic-Indian counting system, used in the Western Culture nations, there are only eighteen (18) 0-1-2-3 numbers.

Check me on this. I don’t think you can use a formula to reach the result. You have to work out all the possible four-digit numbers using the rule that a 0-1-2-3 year has to contain the glyphs 0, 1, 2 and 3 without a repeat of any digit. In other words, you have to use an algorithm or procedure, not a formula. To learn more about algorithms, see the July 12, 2012 blog post entitled in part, “Delorean Hoaxes & Eratosthenes Persistence” – it’s all about algorithms and the Sieve of Eratosthenes to sort out the prime numbers. Type the words in the search box at the top of the page and the post should pop up.

The first four digits in the Arabic-Indian numbering system are 0, 1, 2 and 3.

What does each of the 0-1-2-3 digits represent?

“0” is the number glyph to represent a digit that isn’t there. Can you see your “0” finger? Of course not, it isn’t there, but the concept is. You believe in that absence even if you can’t see its presence. It appears the absence of something can be believed to be something, if placed appropriately. This may be the secret of the success of the Arabic-Indian numbering system. One other thing about “0,” look at the shape of the glyph – a circle. A circle has no discernible beginning and no end, no recognizable start or finish. You know it has both, both a start and a finish, but you can’t see or find either. “0” is the perfect shape for that which can’t be found but is known by faith and believed to be present. You can’t start without “0” and you can’t continue without “0.” It starts everything out and keeps it all going.  In short, “0” is the “Creator” number, the beginning of it all and the necessary concomitant of any effective system of counting.

“1” is the representation of the individual, of you and me separately. For its place, let’s call “1” the “Me” number.

“2” is the pair number. It is the joining of two “1” individual “Me” numbers into the first numerical couple, which is “2.” It is the first prime number, the first combination, the first divisor and the first number with progeny. In the land of numbers, it is the Adam and Eve. We shall refer to it as the “Parents” number for its fundamental procreative role in the order of numbers.

“3” return us to the land of the numerical unknown. Trinitarian concepts insist on children, and off-spring ensure continuance of the creation. If we want the count to continue, the count would end at “2” if there was never a “3”. “3” launches us into the great uncertain, because it requires us to trust in the future. We can see the beginning, but we cannot know the ending. We depend on faith for that. Once “0” acts to create “1” and “2”, “2” act together to engender “3,” which leads all the numbers forward in prime combinations and assorted continuances. Frightening as it may be, “3” is the start of the “Children.”

If “0” is the “Creator,” “1” is “Me,” “2” is the two of us as “Parents,” and “3” is the start of the “Children,” then 2013 AD can be seen as us as Parents, acting with the fundamental Creator principle upon which all things are based, to overcome the “Me” that wants my way, to give the gift of continuance in our “Children” to all the human race.

Now, that’s one New Year’s Resolution we can add our numbers to.

I think I like this year New Year 2013 AD.

I hope you do, too,

Grandpa Jim