Even Computers Make Mistakes

For computers, the difference between 1999 and 2000 could be billions.

It may seem hard to believe, but some of the world's smartest computers can't tell the difference between the year 1900 and the year 2000. That's because older computer programs just use the last two numbers to tell the year. So they call this year '98' instead of 1998.

Here's the problem: When the year 2000 begins, computers that haven't been fixed will think they've gone back in time to the year 1900.

Or they may think that a 100-year-old man is really a newborn baby.

That could cause billions of dollars of trouble in the new century. So experts are spending millions now trying to fix it.

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