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The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. Now it threatens the foundations of modern physics. 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.
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Previews available in: English French
Subjects
Mathematics, Number Theory, Zero, Mathematics, history, Zero (The number), singularities, infinities, Aspect religieux, Histoire, Zéro (nombre)Places
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Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
June 2003, New Millennium Audio
Audio cassette
in English
- UNABRIDGED edition
1590073541 9781590073544
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Zéro, la biographie d'une idée dangereuse
September 18, 2002, Lattès
Paperback
in French
2709622068 9782709622066
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Zwilling der Unendlichkeit: Eine Biographie der Zahl Null
2002-02, Goldmann
Taschenbuch
in German
- 1. Auflage
344215054X 9783442150540
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Zwilling der Unendlichkeit: Eine Biographie der Zahl Null
February 1, 2002, Goldmann
Paperback
in German
344215054X 9783442150540
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Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
April 9, 2001, Publishing Mills
Audio cassette
in English
- UNABRIDGED edition
1575110709 9781575110707
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Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
2000, Penguin Books
Hardcover
in English
067088457X 9780670884575
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Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
September 5, 2000, Penguin (Non-Classics)
in English
0140296476 9780140296471
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Book Details
First Sentence
"The story of zero is an ancient one."
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- Created April 30, 2008
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August 12, 2010 | Edited by IdentifierBot | added LibraryThing ID |
April 24, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs. |
April 16, 2010 | Edited by bgimpertBot | Added goodreads ID. |
April 14, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Linked existing covers to the edition. |
April 30, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from amazon.com record |