Philosophy Now Forum

Historically speaking, the positive numbers (including fractions) and counting preceded the concept of zero.

Zero, to most people, seems such an easy idea. Yet historically speaking, it was elusive for many years and has differing meanings depending on which branch of math you're considering. Then many years after the concept of zero was born, we came up with negative numbers and complex numbers, etc.

Zero to a layman denotes the absence of quantity. This definition of zero doesn't seem elusive, yet it took many years for it to be recognized as a number so I wonder what makes it so challenging? What does zero really mean to math? Does it have other properties that are yet to be recognized?

PhilX

Zero is the source of the number system and should not be included in the set. Zero is that which cannot be/is not described. It is the Tao. The opening of the Tao Te Ching:

"The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name
The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth
The named is the mother of myriad things"

Zero as it is used in the number 10 has a meaning. If one looks closely and objectively at the number 10 one sees that is the point where the system begins describing itself and thusly introducing infinite redundancy. Occams razor wants to cut this system off at the number 10. Zero is source. It is the Alpha and should be the Omega.

I feel that the number 10 should be reinvented. What if it had it's own distinct symbol, rather than the redundancy of reusing 1 and 0? 0 would be left out of the set completely. Perhaps such a system would more accurately describe finite systems (is the physical realm finite? It appears to have a beginning.) It couldn't be used for counting, but counting is more of a manipulation of physicality than it is a description/model of it.

Greatest invention in maths was not 0, it was i, when we realised that in a 4th dimension 90 degrees to the other 3, maths worked to solve all the geometry and hence topolgy in the world, we truly had found some sort of perfect math.



The most perfect equation in history. It solves everything, not perhaps philosophical ontology, or any sort of etiology amongst other things, but it solves arbitrary concerns perfectly when given absolutes.

Things just all work out if you give perfection to maths. Perhaps that is why dreamers study pure maths, and the realist applied.

You could spend your whole life showing how that simple equation underlies all algebra, trigonometry hence calculus and all number theory in math, sadly someone beat you too it, 1+1=2 and i^2= [-1].

fucking hell e^(i.pi) +1=0 amazing. It makes pure mathematicians all gooey inside.

Zero – a cycle of symbols of numerical values. It is the symbol defining set of numerical symbols in the global volume (P/6). In this value, allocation of each numerical symbol is defined by a geometrical pose of space of global volume. In this case, set of numerical symbols is structure of global volume. Changing space poses – we define a numerical symbol. Here the materialization of space corresponds to a concrete numerical symbol. A numerical symbol – a pose of a materialization of structure of space. In this case, process of a materialization of numerical structure is defined by identity of systems of numerical symbols of value zero. Conic and pyramidal value of structure of numerical symbols (number in number), is defined by the general core of equality – a value axis zero.

In programming, null or nil is the handy advance. Zero is just another number.

In programming, with respect to the architecture of the computer, only '1' means something but can only exist if it has a 'place' (memory) to hold it in, which is necessarily only meaningful as a "variable". The variable nature of its memory necessitates at least some other value than a '1'. As such, if it can hold the value, '1', it requires some other 'value' to which it contrasts. This is considered the "complementary" of '1'. In the least possible set of values that can be used, we define the unique complement of '1' as 'not-1' or, symbolically as, '0'. But notice that the memory space defaults to being '0' until the power is on. The computer's programming, if it was able to be 'aware' of its own architecture, doesn't make sense of the space (memory) as having both values because that would be contradictory (that some place exists that could be both '1' and '0').

This is why people default similarly to presume the Natural Numbers (1, 2, 3, ....) before finding meaning to Whole Numbers (0, 1, 2, 3, ...). Each stage of math evolves in a similar dismissal of 'other' possibilities. Negative Numbers act as inverse operations upon the Whole Numbers to which give us the Integers (...-3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3,..) Then comes the Rational Numbers that recognize another unrealized set of complementary realities. Then we discovered the Irrational Numbers. Then, finally, the Complex Numbers. Each stage is evolved from a distinct previous dismissal that originated from some presumed non-existing stage.

So Zero is the first of these, even though we don't perceive it prior to something other than nothing itself.

I understand you. But null/nil is a constant, not a variable, just to mention. Note I'm speaking from a Lisp perspective.

What would you compare this with.

How about the 3,4,5 ratio?

We did just fine for thousands of years without a ZERO. But when some bright spark of Babylonian figures out that if you take the rods of 3,4,5 lengths you get a RIght Angle from joining them together. That meant that as long as you have calipers or a piece of string to make a unit of any size you can make a Builder's Square from any straight piece of wood.

This innovation built every building in the entire ancient world from Londinium to Timbuctoo; and from Olisipio to Shanghai.

And gave the world the square on the hypoteneuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides, at least a 1000 years before Pythagoras.

HC said:

"...1000 years..." How would you express 1000 without those zeros? And can you imagine performing operations with those Roman numerals?

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote:HC said:

"...1000 years..." How would you express 1000 without those zeros? And can you imagine performing operations with those Roman numerals?

PhilX

Easy.

M succinct, brief, to the point.

What "operations" are you talking about?

duplicate

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Philosophy Explorer wrote:HC said:

"...1000 years..." How would you express 1000 without those zeros? And can you imagine performing operations with those Roman numerals?

PhilX

Easy.

M succinct, brief, to the point.

What "operations" are you talking about?

You must have been sleeping in math class. Have you ever heard of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division?

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Philosophy Explorer wrote:HC said:

"...1000 years..." How would you express 1000 without those zeros? And can you imagine performing operations with those Roman numerals?

PhilX

Easy.

M succinct, brief, to the point.

What "operations" are you talking about?

You must have been sleeping in math class. Have you ever heard of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division?

PhilX

I did not mention "all these operations". You use of English is limited I know.
Nevertheless. I'll let that go.
Maybe you were not listening in history?

Maybe you never heard of an ABACUS? A good operator of an abacus can do all those operations faster than a pocket calculator.
They were invented in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC (or maybe even earlier) and initially employed the sexagesimal system. There never was a need for a zero as that was implied by an empty row of beads.

The builders square is one good contender for the greatest advance in Maths, the Abacus is another great contender, as it enabled calculations at great speed without a zero for thousands of years.

Once you know how to use one, you can then do without one and employ imagination with a "MENTAL ABACUS"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj7XbnYrIk0

It's only our familiarity with decimal columns using a null position that makes us think that zero is so important. People have got along with other methods for thousands of years before with no problems.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
I did not mention "all these operations". You use of English is limited I know.
Nevertheless. I'll let that go.
Maybe you were not listening in history?

Maybe you never heard of an ABACUS? A good operator of an abacus can do all those operations faster than a pocket calculator.
They were invented in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC (or maybe even earlier) and initially employed the sexagesimal system. There never was a need for a zero as that was implied by an empty row of beads.

The builders square is one good contender for the greatest advance in Maths, the Abacus is another great contender, as it enabled calculations at great speed without a zero for thousands of years.

Once you know how to use one, you can then do without one and employ imagination with a "MENTAL ABACUS"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj7XbnYrIk0

It's only our familiarity with decimal columns using a null position that makes us think that zero is so important. People have got along with other methods for thousands of years before with no problems.

A computer can do these operations faster than an abacus operator (using a 0 btw). Can an abacus operator keep up against a computer, with or without a zero?

PhilX

Dalek Prime wrote:I understand you. But null/nil is a constant, not a variable, just to mention. Note I'm speaking from a Lisp perspective.

Yes, this is used to end a data string with characters though, not regular numbers. When a string is accessed, it looks up the address where the string of data is located. Because character ASCII symbol assigns NUL to '0' in binary, any non-zero numbers listed refer to a character. The NUL at the end tells a program when to quit.

Pseudo-code Example:

Definition and data:
String -> "Colors" = (72, 105, 0)

Instruction code:
1) Let x = 0
2) If "color"[x] = 0 (or NUL) go to step 6
3) Print x
4) x = x + 1
5) Go to step (2)
6) End program.

[Ascii codes: http://www.ascii-code.com/]