Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea | 
|  | | | Title: | Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea | | Author: | Charles Seife | | Publisher: | Penguin (Non-Classics) | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 01 September, 2000 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0140296476 / 9780140296471 | | List Price: | $15.00 | | You Save: | $4.80 | | Amazon Price: | $10.20 | |
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Book Description
Charles Seife traces the origins and colorful history of the number zero from Aristotle to superstring theory by way of Pythagoras, the Kabbalists, and Einstein. Weaving together ancient dramas and state-of-the-art science, Zero is a concise tour of a universe of ideas bound up in the simple notion of nothingness.
Amazon.com
The seemingly impossible Zen task--writing a book about nothing--has a loophole: people have been chatting, learning, and even fighting about nothing for millennia. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, by noted science writer Charles Seife, starts with the story of a modern battleship stopped dead in the water by a loose zero, then rewinds back to several hundred years BCE. Some empty-headed genius improved the traditional Eastern counting methods immeasurably by adding zero as a placeholder, which allowed the genesis of our still-used decimal system. It's all been uphill from there, but Seife is enthusiastic about his subject; his synthesis of math, history, and anthropology seduces the reader into a new fascination with the most troubling number. Why did the Church reject the use of zero? How did mystics of all stripes get bent out of shape over it? Is it true that science as we know it depends on this mysterious round digit? Zero opens up these questions and lets us explore the answers and their ramifications for our oh-so-modern lives. Seife has fun with his format, too, starting with chapter 0 and finishing with an appendix titled "Make Your Own Wormhole Time Machine." (Warning: don't get your hopes up too much.) There are enough graphs and equations to scare off serious numerophobes, but the real story is in the interactions between artists, scientists, mathematicians, religious and political leaders, and the rest of us--it seems we really do have nothing in common. --Rob Lightner
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Customer Reviews:
• Zero 08 July, 2008
This is an interesting book that has some flaws. The most fascinating were the earlier parts of the book that addressed the various cultures around the globe and how their practical needs and philosophical points of view affected their mathematical development, and how the number zero fit into that big picture. As the book progresses the author tries to address cosmology on larger and larger scales, and he stretches things quite a bit. There also seemed to be a good bit of filler. I think if the author had stuck to the more mathematical side of the story this could have made for a really great extended magazine article, such as you might read in The Atlantic.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A22JZ1B49KPYQW
• Interesting, But A Bit Stretched 26 August, 2008
The book was something like 200 pages, but it read like it was a little more than that.
The good points:
1. An interesting demonstration of how things that are only of moment to intellectuals at one point in time become things of great significance later.
2. An interesting demonstration of how ugly the fight for influence can be. (It is interesting to speculate that people now are no different to what they have been for the last 250,000 years, and that the motives of people who seek to "educate" others about environmentalism/ military-industrial complexes/ etc.) may not be as pure as what they seem.
3. The perspective on the dynamics of the Catholic Church's suppression of contrary ideas was also very interesting. Many people (preferring to spout anti-religious screed) do not treat this fact as one set of intellectuals fighting to impose their vision to the detriment of some other set of intellectuals' vision-- which it in fact seems to be.
4. It was interesting to note how slow the development of ideas was. Can a person really believe that it took nearly a thousand years to popularize the number "0" until he reads this book?
Bad points:
1. The treatment of differential calculus was diminished by the use of strange notation. It might have been easier to show how this would come up in the context of trying to solve a real problem rather than just presenting the idea the way that it was presented.
2. The treatment of integral calculus is simply poor. He could have spent a few more pages on it without diminishing the book.
3. The treatment of the Riemann plane was not good, either. I understood the calculus before reading the book, and so I could see what he was trying to get at. However, I didn't understand much of anything after that. So the weakness of the explanations became more evident when delving into new topics.
4. The book could have used some additional appendices to flush out explanations that the author didn't want to put in the text of the book.
5. The topic of the book seems to become a bit stretched at the end. It goes from explaining the intellectual history of zero to its uses in physics, and the transition is not smooth. One gets the feeling that the author was stretching to find a connection to finish the book.
All in all, worth the purchase price of a secondhand book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AKR6UK8O6DM6X
• Good Work Of Science 21 July, 2008
This book looks at the idea of zero, and its opposite, infinity, in the history of human thought from multiple civilizations, such as the Mayans, Indians, Arabs, ancient Greeks, Renaissance Europe, and China. The book is fast-paced and the author adds in some humor here and there. For a book about math, the subject material was made quite accessible, and the author added in the occasional drawings, proofs and derivations to explain concepts better. Quite an enjoyable read.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1DK5AZMXS1QA3
• Not A Math Lover But I Still Enjoyed The Book! 04 September, 2008
The thing I liked most about Zero was the humor & sarcasm thrown in by the author. It breaks up the seriousness & complexity of some of the topics he covers & relates to zero (i.e. Calculus, Quantum Physics). Seife gave plenty of examples & metaphors to help the average joe understand the overall concepts. He also goes deeper for those readers that are math buffs.
While the entire concept of zero/infinity is constantly repeated throughout the book, I like the way the book was organized: chonologically. Zero begins with a history/religion lesson as it discusses zero's origin. Then, the book moves into philosophy/mathematics & zero's role. Last, the book covers topics on a much bigger scale such as astrology/physics/Big Bang theory, and how zero will affect the future.
Zero kept me entertained, challenged me to think abstractly regarding religion/philosophy/our universe, and kept the tone very light. I have always struggled with math & hated the subject, but this book is more than a math lesson! Try it!
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3V9UZMZ60WEKO
• Highly Entertaining 15 July, 2008
I am a math teacher and read this book on recommendation from a fellow math teacher. The book is well-suited for high schoolers (as far as concepts go), but can also be used in middle school. I start by saying that I find history, even the history of math, fascinating; my emphasis in teaching is on the "why" and often times, that answer is found in history or in the field of ethnomathematics. Not only is the book educational, it is extremely well written. Often times it is even funny. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in history or math.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2GFRZ4HAWY6RZ
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