Zero
Subtitle: the biography of a dangerous idea
By: Charles Seife.
Publisher: Viking
Published: 2000
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 248
Copyright date: 2000
Subjects: Zero (The number)
First sentence: Zero hit the USS Yorktown like a torpedo.
Description: "Zero follows the number zero from its birth as an Eastern philosophical concept to its struggle for acceptance in Europe and its apotheosis as the mystery of a black hole. Here are the legendary thinkers who battled over the meaning of this mysterious number - scholars and mystics, cosmologists and clergymen whose clashes over zero shook the foundations of philosophy, science, mathematics, and religion.".

"Charles Seife's account takes us from Aristotle to superstring theory by way of Pythagoras, Descartes, the Kabbalists, and Einstein. It is a concise tour of a universe of ideas bound up in the simple notion of nothing."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 231-238) and index.
Table of contents: title: Contents
pagenum: v; label: 0
title: Null and Void
pagenum: 1; label: 1
title: Nothing Doing; title: The Origin of Zero
pagenum: 5; label: 2
title: Nothing Comes of Nothing; title: The West Rejects Zero
pagenum: 25; label: 3
title: Nothing Ventured; title: Zero Goes East
pagenum: 63; label: 4
title: The Infinite God of Nothing; title: The Theology of Zero
pagenum: 83; label: 5
title: Infinite Zeros and Infidel Mathematicians; title: Zero and the Scientific Revolution
pagenum: 105; label: 6
title: Infinity’s Twin; title: The Infinite Nature of Zero
pagenum: 131; label: 7
title: Absolute Zeros; title: The Physics of Zero
pagenum: 157; label: 8
title: Zero Hour at Ground Zero; title: Zero at the Edge of Space and Time
pagenum: 191; label: ∞
title: Zero’s Final Victory; title: End Time
pagenum: 211; label: A
title: Animal, Vegetable, or Minister?
pagenum: 217; label: B
title: The Golden Ratio
pagenum: 221; label: C
title: The Modern Definition of a Derivative
pagenum: 223; label: D
title: Cantor Enumerates the Rational Numbers
pagenum: 225; label: E
title: Make Your Own Wormhole Time Machine
pagenum: 229; title: Selected Bibliography
pagenum: 231; title: Acknowledgments
pagenum: 239; title: Index
pagenum: 241