10-04-2006, 09:54 PM
This article is a convergence of history, mathematics and religio- politics!
[url=http://129.130.29.130/Collegian/article.php?a=5435}Concept of Zero, Nothingness changed the World[/url]
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COLUMN: Concept of zero, nothingness changed the world
Published on Thursday, March 17, 2005Â
Aaron Duncan
Kansas State CollegianÂ
The USS Yorktown was a billion-dollar missile cruiser. Warships like it are designed to withstand the strike of a torpedo or the blast of a mine.
Though it was heavily armored against physical attacks, no ever thought to defend the Yorktown from zero.
On Sept. 21, 1997, while cruising off the coast of Virginia, zero struck, and 80,000 horsepower became worthless. The Yorktown's computers had just received new software to run its engines. Unfortunately, a single zero that was supposed to be removed from the software slipped by engineers. It lay hidden until the shipâs computer system tried to divide by zero, and everything shut down.
<b>Charles Seife relates this story in his 2000 book, âZero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea.â He notes, âThe biggest questions in science, religion, mathematics and philosophy are about nothingness.â </b>
Too often, we have not paid attention to our history and the evolution of concepts. In particular, the concept of nothing or zero has important implications for where our society has been and where it is going.
It is difficult for us to imagine it today, but there was a point in time when nothing wasnât anything at all. <b>Dr. Robert Kaplan writes in his book, âThe Nothing That Is,â that zero first appeared in the Babylonian civilization around 300 BC.</b>
<i>{Psy-ops!!! By Kaplan}</i>
<b>The West did not respond favorably to this Eastern concept. The most important reason for the West rejecting zero is that zero broke the rules of mathematics established by Western civilization. </b>
One of these basic rules is the axiom of Archimedes, which states that if you add a number to itself enough times, it will exceed any other number in magnitude. We see that 1 + 1 = 2 and 1 + 1 + 1 = 3.
However, this is not true of zero. Add zero to itself, and all you get is zero. Zero refuses to change. Because of this, the West could not accept it for nearly two millennia.
<b>Mathematics was not the only area in which zero clashed with Western life. Zero challenged the Westâs belief in God. </b>Aristotle wrote a theory to justify the existence of God. In that theory, he reasoned that there was no such thing as nothing, thus something had to have created the heavens and the Earth. Something must be moving the sun, the stars and the moon, and that something was God.
<b>Christianity adapted Aristotleâs theory to much of early Christian theology. Everything was fine until the 1500s when Renaissance thinkers rediscovered zero and realized that if nothing does exist, then Aristotleâs theory is flawed at a very fundamental level. The Catholic Church was left with two choices: either accept zero and see their faith destroyed or reject it and preserve their theology.
They choose the latter and zero soon became labeled as a device of heretics, and the teaching of it was banned by the church. However, not even the Catholic Church could contain zero. Despite the Papal ban, the teaching of zero continued and eventually the West was forced to accept this most dangerous of all concepts.</b>
<i>{Mpre psy-ops that Renaissance Europe rediscovered Zero.}</i>
Ultimately, Seife puts it best when he reminds us that, "No other number can do such damage. Computer failures like the one that struck the Yorktown are just a faint shadow of the power of zero. Cultures have grinded against it, and philosophies have crumbled because of it. This why it has been feared, hated and even outlawed."
<b>Learning from the Yorktown and from past civilizations, the zero is not a thing to be feared. It should be revered. </b>
Aaron Duncan is a graduate student in speech communication. Please send your comments to opinion@spub.ksu.edu
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[url=http://129.130.29.130/Collegian/article.php?a=5435}Concept of Zero, Nothingness changed the World[/url]
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->
COLUMN: Concept of zero, nothingness changed the world
Published on Thursday, March 17, 2005Â
Aaron Duncan
Kansas State CollegianÂ
The USS Yorktown was a billion-dollar missile cruiser. Warships like it are designed to withstand the strike of a torpedo or the blast of a mine.
Though it was heavily armored against physical attacks, no ever thought to defend the Yorktown from zero.
On Sept. 21, 1997, while cruising off the coast of Virginia, zero struck, and 80,000 horsepower became worthless. The Yorktown's computers had just received new software to run its engines. Unfortunately, a single zero that was supposed to be removed from the software slipped by engineers. It lay hidden until the shipâs computer system tried to divide by zero, and everything shut down.
<b>Charles Seife relates this story in his 2000 book, âZero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea.â He notes, âThe biggest questions in science, religion, mathematics and philosophy are about nothingness.â </b>
Too often, we have not paid attention to our history and the evolution of concepts. In particular, the concept of nothing or zero has important implications for where our society has been and where it is going.
It is difficult for us to imagine it today, but there was a point in time when nothing wasnât anything at all. <b>Dr. Robert Kaplan writes in his book, âThe Nothing That Is,â that zero first appeared in the Babylonian civilization around 300 BC.</b>
<i>{Psy-ops!!! By Kaplan}</i>
<b>The West did not respond favorably to this Eastern concept. The most important reason for the West rejecting zero is that zero broke the rules of mathematics established by Western civilization. </b>
One of these basic rules is the axiom of Archimedes, which states that if you add a number to itself enough times, it will exceed any other number in magnitude. We see that 1 + 1 = 2 and 1 + 1 + 1 = 3.
However, this is not true of zero. Add zero to itself, and all you get is zero. Zero refuses to change. Because of this, the West could not accept it for nearly two millennia.
<b>Mathematics was not the only area in which zero clashed with Western life. Zero challenged the Westâs belief in God. </b>Aristotle wrote a theory to justify the existence of God. In that theory, he reasoned that there was no such thing as nothing, thus something had to have created the heavens and the Earth. Something must be moving the sun, the stars and the moon, and that something was God.
<b>Christianity adapted Aristotleâs theory to much of early Christian theology. Everything was fine until the 1500s when Renaissance thinkers rediscovered zero and realized that if nothing does exist, then Aristotleâs theory is flawed at a very fundamental level. The Catholic Church was left with two choices: either accept zero and see their faith destroyed or reject it and preserve their theology.
They choose the latter and zero soon became labeled as a device of heretics, and the teaching of it was banned by the church. However, not even the Catholic Church could contain zero. Despite the Papal ban, the teaching of zero continued and eventually the West was forced to accept this most dangerous of all concepts.</b>
<i>{Mpre psy-ops that Renaissance Europe rediscovered Zero.}</i>
Ultimately, Seife puts it best when he reminds us that, "No other number can do such damage. Computer failures like the one that struck the Yorktown are just a faint shadow of the power of zero. Cultures have grinded against it, and philosophies have crumbled because of it. This why it has been feared, hated and even outlawed."
<b>Learning from the Yorktown and from past civilizations, the zero is not a thing to be feared. It should be revered. </b>
Aaron Duncan is a graduate student in speech communication. Please send your comments to opinion@spub.ksu.edu
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