Sunday, October 12, 2008

etymology of the zero reader

...Infinity...
Three.
Two.
One.

Zero as a concept originated somewhere in the vicinity of around slightly less than 2000 years ago, in a joint effort between China and India. Since then it has gone on to mutate into several different permutations each more cunning than the last: zero as the mediator between positive and negative integers, zero as a counting number when appended to others (and not by itself), there's zero the place holder, zero as an infinitely small magnitude, and now the zero reader. The first zero reader, if such a thing is possible, was tracked writing a blog post some time during late July in the year 2008, which when completed went on to garner no attention and create no buzz of any kind. From there the species proliferated multiplying with abandon. Zero readers times zero readers is zero readers. Perhaps another approach was in order. Zero readers divided by zero readers equals infinite or undefined zero readers. Now your talking. Creatio Ex Nihilo really does happen sometimes, who says there's no free lunch? Zero readers know this principle well and have been dividing ever since. The Buddhas like to say that emptiness exists to be filled, zeros are in the emptiness and the emptiness is in them. Zero readers often shout into the void of internet obscurity just for fun and sometimes when their ears reach the point of sublime sensitivity the void shouts back.

Negative one.
Negative two.
Negative Three
..infinity...

side note>>
Many of the terms used in this post were gratefully borrowed from Introducing Mathematics by Sardar, Ravetz and Van Loon.

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