Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea

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

Product Description
A concise and appealing look at the strangest number in the universe and its continuing role as one of the great paradoxes of human thought

The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. Now, as Y2K fever rages, it threatens a technological apocalypse. For centuries the power of zero savored of the demonic; once harnessed, it became the most important tool in mathematics. For zero, infinity's twin, is not like other numbers. It is both nothing and everything.

In Zero science journalist Charles Seife follows this innocent-looking number from its birth as an Eastern philosophical concept to its struggle for acceptance in Europe, its rise and transcendence in the West, and its ever-present threat to modern physics. Here are the legendary thinkers--from Pythagoras to Newton to Heisenberg, from the Kabalists to today's astrophysicists--who have tried to understand it and whose clashes shook the foundations of philosophy, science, mathematics, and religion. Zero has pitted East against West and faith against reason, and its intransigence persists in the dark core of a black hole and the brilliant flash of the Big Bang. Today, zero lies at the heart of one of the biggest scientific controversies of all time, the quest for a theory of everything.

Readers of Fermat's Enigma, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, Seeing and Believing, and Longitudewill find the revealingly illustrated Zero freshly informative, easy to understand, and--infinitely--fascinating.

Zero.

Charles Seife's history of zero(and of infinity, which is awfully close to the same thing, as Seife elegantly demonstrates)is one of the most interesting and thought-provoking books I have read in a long time. There are mathematical and scientific equations and concepts aplenty here, but they were not daunting for this manifestly un-mathematic non-scientist. Seife has a fascinating story to tell and he tells it with enthusiasm. I cannot recommend Zero too highly.


An intriguing idea   January 6, 2002
Atheen M. Wilson (Mpls, MN United States)
52 out of 62 found this review helpful

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea is a book based on an intriguing idea, the history of zero. It's
something that most of us don't often contemplate. Some of us may know that zero, at least as a place holder,
was invented/discovered by the Mayans, but beyond that most of us haven't a clue. At least I hadn't.

Charles Seife begins his discourse with the earliest history of numbers. Counted things first appear in the
archaeological record as marks on bones in the the stone age. Early civilizations had little use for a concept
of zero; one rarely counts no apples or no sheep, etc. Ancient Egyptian mathematics seems to have been limited to measuring land areas and calendaric time for which zero in their method was unnecessary. In fact, it is the early calendar's persistent lack of zero in day and year counting that led to the confusion over when the 21st century started. The Babylonians likewise used
math for celestial observation and calendars, but they also introduced zero as a place holder which simplified the writing of numbers and doing simple arithmetic.

It is among the Greek philosophers that Seife sees an outright distaste for the concept of zero as nothing, a void. It conflicted with their particular notions of the universe and how it operated. Their aversion to it seems to have
carried over into the Mediaeval European period by way of the offended established principles of the church.
Seife follows the history of zero to modern times and discusses some of the ways that zero and infinity are
the same and some of the ways that they oppose one another. He brings both quantum mechanics and relativity theory into the discussion, revealing some of the ways that looking at zero and infinity have led to advances in physics in more recent times.

The author is a science writer with an MS in mathematics. As a journalist his style is both enjoyable and readable, making a complex subject more accessible to the average individual--that is, he doesn't bog one down with a lot of complicated equations. I'm no math wiz by any means, but I understood his thesis in its
entirety. Those who've studied math in greater depth may find the book a little patronizing or at least a little too heavy on the verbal form and a little too light on the math.


Life, the Universe, and Nothing   September 27, 2004
Andrew McCaffrey (Satellite of Love, Maryland)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful

ZERO: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A DANGEROUS IDEA is a book about literally nothing (thankfully, no Seinfeld references). It's a non-fiction book dealing with some concepts that the layman may find difficult. However, it's told with enough clarity and wit that the reader should never feel overwhelmed by the mathematical and scientific terminology. Charles Seife does a fine job of balancing the explanations with the investigations.

I really enjoyed reading this book, though I should point out that I already liked mathematical topics beforehand. Not that I was particularly gifted in mathematics in school, but the fun thing about reading books like this is that one can still think about and ponder the concepts without having to spend several hours a day doing repetitive busywork.

Seife delves deep into the origins of zero. I found it fascinating to see exactly how some cultures simply had no need of zero and how others came to the idea with much resistance. The religious, philosophical, mathematical and scientific ramifications of this discovery are discussed and never fail to be intriguing.

Although zero is what got on the cover and in the title, infinity plays a large part too. The book goes on a short history of major paradigm changes in philosophy, math and physics, pointing out where zero and infinity played major roles in tearing down old schools of thought and building new ones. Zero and infinity complement each other, and the history of zero would be incomplete without demonstrating how contemporaneous theories of infinity influenced it.

I should also mention the book's tone. Although most people wouldn't think of a math text as a jolly read, this one would defy those expectations. You have to admire any book that includes the sentence: "See appendix A for a proof that Winston Churchill was a carrot."

Of course, humor and the whimsical flavor are only the icing. I'll remember a lot of the pure information presented. Some of it is meticulously analyzed, while some facts are just casually offered. Although this is a relatively small book, it feels very dense (in the best possible way). There's a lot here.

I applaud Seife's research and presentation. While it would probably be difficult to make such interesting concepts boring, the writing here is anything but dry. This is the perfect gift for those of us with an interest in math, but without the intense background needed to survive a more mathematician-focused tome.


Engaging and Enlightening   June 23, 2000
Paul Bernhardt (Salt Lake City, Utah)
26 out of 32 found this review helpful

I can't recommend this book highly enough. For everyone who has ever struggled with mathematics, this book shows that through history mathematicians also had their struggles with what might appear to be the simplest of numbers, zero. While focusing squarely on the history of zero, the book leaves the reader with so much more. By the end, you have an appreciation for the subtlety and beauty of mathematics. To illustrate, in one chapter Seife tells how a the student of the famous Gauss, using ideas found by a Frenchman who was imprisoned in Russia, found that zero and infinity are twins diguised as opposites.

Seife's writing is clear and engaging. I read this book much like I might read a well woven spy thriller, finding myself spending that extra few minutes indulging in luxurious reading rather than proceeding with mundane necessities of life (i.e., sleep).

And, as another reviewer has done, to contrast this book with another recent volume on the same topic, Kaplan's The Nothing that Is, the differences are remarkable. Succinctly, it is the difference between an enjoyable read and a grinding burden. Kaplan's book is unfocused, leaving the reader confused about where in time or space the historical events are occuring. Kaplan's side trips of literary fancy were very distracting to me and added little to the story. And story is the key. In Zero, Seife is telling a story and clearly enjoying telling it on its own terms. Kaplan did not tell a story, leaving the reader wondering why any particular part is being told. I understood from the start what Kaplan was trying to do, and I was bewildered that he failed so horribly. Seife's is, hands down, the better book on the subject of the history of zero.


Eye-opening and fun   July 27, 2006
Luke D. Lackrone (Tempe, AZ USA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful

This was a great book. I took it on a trip, and it provided sufficient reading for a couple plane trips and a couple boring nights. Though written by a mathematician, it's appropriate for nearly any audience, and I've had no trouble passing it off to friends who aren't engineers.

If you'd like to understand how zero came into the number system, what the religious and philisopical implications and resistances were, and how zero plays a central role in current scientific research, this book lays it all out concisely and pleasurably.