Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous IdeaA New York Times Notable Book. The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. Now it threatens the foundations of modern physics. For centuries the power of zero savored of the demonic; once harnessed, it became the most important tool in mathematics. For zero, infinity's twin, is not like other numbers. It is both nothing and everything. In Zero, Science Journalist Charles Seife follows this innocent-looking number from its birth as an Eastern philosophical concept to its struggle for acceptance in Europe, its rise and transcendence in the West, and its ever-present threat to modern physics. Here are the legendary thinkers—from Pythagoras to Newton to Heisenberg, from the Kabalists to today's astrophysicists—who have tried to understand it and whose clashes shook the foundations of philosophy, science, mathematics, and religion. Zero has pitted East against West and faith against reason, and its intransigence persists in the dark core of a black hole and the brilliant flash of the Big Bang. Today, zero lies at the heart of one of the biggest scientific controversies of all time: the quest for a theory of everything. |
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abacus Achilles ancient Arabic Archimedes Aristotelian Aristotle Aristotle's astronomers atoms axiom of Archimedes Babylonian ball balloon big bang black hole calculus calendar Cantor carpet Casimir effect century closer cosmos counting created curve Descartes digit dividing by zero Earth Egyptians Einstein electron ellipse equal equation faster Figure finite galaxies geometry golden ratio gravity Greek idea imagine Indian infinite number infinite zeros infinity and zero irrational l'Hôpital L'Hôpital's rule laws Leibniz Maimonides math mathematicians mathematics Mayans measure move multiplying nature negative numbers Newton's number line number system objects parabola particles Pascal philosophy physicists planets problem Pythagoras Pythagorean quantum mechanics rational numbers real numbers scientists seat simple singularity smaller and smaller space space-time speed of light sphere square star string theory symbol tangent thing tiny tions tortoise ultraviolet catastrophe universe vacuum virtual particles void wave wiggling wormhole Zeno Zeno's zero and infinity zero-point energy