Remember originally that -1 was 1 BC, meaning 1 year before the birth of christ. The negative numbers are measuring the distance away from 0.
Edit: in the positive direction, the 1 was 1 AD, meaning the first year of our lord. Just like when talking about the reign of kings/queens, the first year of their reign is 1 and the 14th year that they reigned is 14. I believe the timekeeping for Ages in LOTR may also be similar.
This explanation is unclear to me. Why do we choose the later of the two endpoints of the year for (0, 1) but the earlier of the two for (-1, 0)?
Because until the Middle Ages, Europeans were afraid of the number 0.
Moving from too… not too from
Remember originally that -1 was 1 BC, meaning 1 year before the birth of christ. The negative numbers are measuring the distance away from 0.
Edit: in the positive direction, the 1 was 1 AD, meaning the first year of our lord. Just like when talking about the reign of kings/queens, the first year of their reign is 1 and the 14th year that they reigned is 14. I believe the timekeeping for Ages in LOTR may also be similar.
For the same reason why 1.5 is on the right from 1 but -1.5 is on the left from -1