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The Nothing That is: A Natural History of Zero
 
 
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The Nothing That is: A Natural History of Zero [Paperback]

Robert Kaplan (Author), Ellen Kaplan (Introduction)
2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (26 Oct 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0140279431
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140279436
  • Product Dimensions: 19.7 x 11.8 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 325,682 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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More About the Author

Robert Kaplan
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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

On the face of it, the chances of a book about zero offering mind-stretching entertainment would seem to be about, well, zero. But in The Nothing That Is, Harvard University mathematician Robert Kaplan shows that there's a lot more to zero than meets the eye.

Unlike the so-called natural numbers like one, two, three and so on, the origins of zero are incredibly hard to pin down. Humans seem to have done quite well without nothing for tens of thousands of years: not even the Greeks, the master mathematicians of the Ancient World, had a symbol for zero. Or did they? Among the many delights of this book is the way Kaplan reveals the twists and turns in the story of the origin of the symbol for zero and his own suggested resolution of the mystery.

The struggle to do things with zero, such as divide it into other numbers, or use it as the ultimate fine-divider of other numbers--the key idea in the calculus--are brought alive by Kaplan, though without ever resorting to more than simple school algebra. His writing style does sometimes stray beyond the literary and into the florid but overall this compact little essay of history, mystery and maths should give you entertainment and mental stimulation in equal measure. --Robert Matthews --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

In this text, Robert Kaplan explores the peculiar course that the notion of "nothing" or its mathematical representative, zero, has taken throughout history. Forced into our awareness 4000 years ago by the need to count ever larger multitudes, zero drifted in and out of focus, disappeared for centuries, then swept from the East into the medieval world, with fears and superstitions crouched around it. Did we discover or invent it? Was it the devil's work? Is it a number or a fiction? Its users came to see that it held immense power to unriddle the universe, leading to profound insights into the mind and the world. And now new layers are coming to light: our computers speak only in zeros and ones, and, for a cosmologist, zero alone can be made to generate everything.
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Customer Reviews

11 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
2.9 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Unfortunately Amazon can't handle 'Zero' stars., 1 Jan 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: The Nothing That is: A Natural History of Zero (Hardcover)
Maths can be a difficult subject to understand, even when presented in clear and simple language. This book constantly distracts the readers attention with flowery and unnecessary prose. The really annoying thing is that having read some sentences a number of times you realise that behind the verbosity, Kaplan is actually saying something very mundane. An example:

"But when it comes to the pedestrian matter of dating such stories or tracing their antecedants, we must give it up. An attitude more poetic than ours toward when events occured, and toward the events themselves, makes hazy chronicles of these distant times"

Could easily have been written as:

"The passage of time makes it impossible to know how reliable such stories are."

There are many fine books which make mathematics accessible to the casual reader. This book is not one of them.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Kaplan must be a botanist, 14 Sep 2001
By 
Dr. Mark Hudson (Reading, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Nothing That is: A Natural History of Zero (Paperback)
I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments of those who thought this book was far too flowery. There were a lot of interesting parts to it and I found the historical passages rather informative; but when he starts introducing ludicrously overblown paragraphs which you just wade and wade through without finding out why he wrote them, it gets rather tedious.

If this book had been a little shorter, it would have been much better.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars A book about nothing, 19 May 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: The Nothing That is: A Natural History of Zero (Paperback)
You don't have to know anything about mathematics to enjoy this book but just a lot about everything else. It is filled with expressions such as "While Hengel watched Spirit lifting away from Substance the Pantheists were seeking God in the old oak and rock" etc etc. In fact the book should be sentenced to an appearance in Private Eye's "Psued's Corner." However when Robert Kaplan deals with pure mathematics his style becomes very lucid indicating he is a teacher of great skill. A great pity he should embark on such a book on a subject that should be of great interest. More for fans of Melvyn Bragg than Richard Feynmann.
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