- 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: 785,102 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
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
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format: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.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format: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.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format: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.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Enlightening.
Having hated maths lessons at school,I was surprised to find myself drawn to,and buying,this book! I was even more surprised to find myself thoroughly enjoying,and ACTUALLY... Read more
Published 14 months ago by ash.differ
Much Ado About Nothing
"The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero" by Robert Kaplan is a look at what is perhaps the most significant creations and advances ever made in mathematics. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Dave_42
Helpful but long winded
I used this book as part of research for a university essay. I found it interesting as it gave me another perspective to write about. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Anj
Even Vogon poetry has it's fans.
It's an intersting subject.
It's a well written book, some of the words are not ones which I use every day, but I was once taught how to use a dictionary, so that is not a... Read more
Published on 9 Jan 2001
Unnecessary waffle obscures any interesting information
I just want to add my voice to those who thought that this book was full of too much flowery language. Read more
Published on 30 Dec 2000
a new age hippy-dippy trip to nowhere
You can almost smell the joss sticks as you are reading this one! The author roams all over the place whilst fruitlessly conjecturing on what might have been 100s or 1000s of years... Read more
Published on 25 May 2000
I Highly recommend this book by Robert Kaplan
In the first chapter Robert Kaplan eloquently traces the first beginnings of "zero" with absolute crystal clarity.
Published on 17 Jan 2000
a wonderful book about the coneptual development of zero
What a wonderful book.
In tracing the historical development of the concept 'zero', Kaplan touches upon the deepest intellectual currents of the western intellectual and... Read more
Published on 16 Jan 2000 by "kanku"
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