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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
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Book Description Hardback. Condition: Very Good. Illustrated (illustrator). The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR004043646
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. Illustrated (illustrator). Wrinkled top edge of jacket at rear.; Index, appendices, bibliography. " story of the people who battled over the meaning of the mysterious number - the scholars and mystics, the scientists and clergymen - who tried to understand zero." 500gms weight; B&W Illustrations; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 250 pages. Seller Inventory # 37984
Book Description Hardback. Illustrated (illustrator). Popular math at its most entertaining and enlightening. Zero is really something-Washington Post A New York Times Notable Book. 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. 2000, First edition. A fine, unmarked copy in a fine, unclipped d/w. 2.5 Centimeters X 14.1 Centimeters X 22.3 Centimeters. Seller Inventory # 16943283