description: The seemingly impossible Zen task of writing a book about nothing has a loophole: people have been chatting, learning and even fighting about nothing for millennia. This account starts with the story of a modern battleship stopped dead in the water by a loose zero, then rewinds back to several hundred years BC. Some empty-headed genius improved the traditional Eastern counting methods immeasurably by adding zero as a placeholder, which allowed the genesis of our currently-used decimal system. Seife is enthusiastic about his subject, providing a synthesis of math, history and anthropology. Why did the Church discourage the use of zero? Why did mystics question its shape? Starting with Chapter 0, Zero is a philosophical look at the time men spent questioning its very meaning.
language: English
title: Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
titlecomplete: Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
genres: Audiobook, Popular Science, History, Biography, Science, Philosophy, Mathematics, Physics, Microhistory, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 10480
awards: awardedAt: 978336000000
name: PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction Writers
publisher: New Millennium Audio