Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea

Softcover edition
Author Charles Seife
Country United States
Language English
Subject Zero, nothingness
Genre Non-fiction
Published February 7, 2000
Publisher Viking Adult
Media type Print, e-book
Pages 256 pp.
ISBN 978-0670884575
Followed by Alpha & Omega

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea is a book by American author and journalist Charles Seife.[1][2] The book offers a comprehensive look at number 0 and its controversing role as one of the great paradoxes of human thought and history since its invention by the ancient Babylonians. Even though zero is a fundamental idea for the modern science, initially the notion of a complete absence got a largely negative, sometimes hostile, treatment by the Western world and Greco-Roman philosophy.[3] Zero won 2001 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction Book.

Review

Of course, Seife's book is not a typical biography. There are no tell-all interviews with the number one or any of zero's other neighbors on the number line... Seife's book begins--of course--at Chapter Zero, with a story of how only recently a divide by zero error in its control software brought the guided missile cruiser USS Yorktown grinding to a halt. As Seife relates, "Though it was armored against weapons, nobody had thought to defend the Yorktown from zero. It was a grave mistake." Maybe it's not the pulse-pounding drama of a Tom Clancy novel, but it's enough foreshadowing to launch Seife on an essay which begins with notches on a 30,000-year-old wolf bone and ends with the role of zero in black holes and the big bang.

Mathematical Association of America[4]

See also

References

  1. "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife". amazon.com. Retrieved 2015-07-13.
  2. Moskowitz, Clara (March 25, 2013). "What is nothing? Physicists debate". foxnews.com. Retrieved 2015-07-14.
  3. Suplee, Curt (January 12, 2000). "The History of Zero". washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2015-07-15.
  4. Leahy, Andrew (April 15, 2000). "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife". maa.org. Retrieved 2015-07-15.
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