Zero is both a mystery and a cornerstone of human knowledge from "summary" of Zero by Charles Seife
Zero is a paradox. It is the absence of something—a void, a blank, a hole in the fabric of mathematics. And yet, it is also a powerful force, a number that can change the course of history. Zero is a mystery that has puzzled mathematicians and philosophers for centuries, and yet it is also a cornerstone of human knowledge, the foundation upon which our understanding of the universe is built. At first glance, zero seems like a simple concept. It is nothing, after all—a lack of quantity, a nonexistence. But as we delve deeper into the world of mathematics, we begin to see that zero is far more complex than it first appears. Zero is both a number and not a number. It is both positive and negative, a paradoxical entity that defies our basic understanding of arithmetic. In the history of mathematics, zero has played a crucial role in the development of new ideas and concepts. The invention of zero as a placeholder revolutionized the way we think about numbers, paving the way for the creat...
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