February 14, 2012 • 30 mins
Few numbers have as storied a past as zero. Even fewer have had as great an impact on our ability to understand our universe. Yet zero is a relatively recent arrival in math. Find out all about this surprisingly fascinating number with Chuck and Josh.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know?
From house stock Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, This Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
and this is a rare, unusual mathematical uh episode of
(00:25):
the Stuff you Should Know? Yes, And I'm just gonna
step out of the room and I'll be back in
what going to do this? This is not gonna be
another yo yo episode. I I just hate math. This
was this was This is not math heavy at all.
It's about the history of zero. It's about the weirdness
of zero, my hero zero exactly until you people counted
(00:48):
on their fingers and toes. I posted that to down Facebook.
I don't know what that is. The Schoolhouse rock. I
don't know. He Rosiero. I don't remember that one until
you came along. Keep going it on her fingers and those.
It's basically you would appreciate it because it sings what
you wrote. Oh, that's great in a much more basic way.
(01:08):
But basically trying to teach kids how amazing zero is
and don't discount it as just it's a number. It's
not the absence of something. Well, there's a lot, there's
a bunch to it. It's many many things. It's a
multi faceted uh number, the multifaceted entity. Well, nol is
(01:29):
German for zero, did you know that? But kiss is
I believe Spanish for zero, zilch zilch is cajun. I
did actually get a little etymology research. Originally Sanskrit was sonya,
which meant empty. Then later arabrick was sepia or nothing.
(01:50):
Then Italian was the foh, and then finally French gave
us zero, right, and it wasn't you know we represent
zero as something that looks confusingly like an oh yeah right.
That was the Europeans who did that. Prior to that,
the Arabs and I believe the Indians too, um represented
zero with a heavy dot. You know where that might
(02:14):
have come from Robert Kaplan's book The Nothing That is
a Natural History of Zero. He speculates that the shape
comes from the round depression left in the sand a
sand counting board. Once you remove a stone from it,
sence would be a round thing. That's what he he thinks,
he speculates, But that wouldn't nevern't have been the Europeans
(02:38):
because the Europeans that came up with that. Well no,
but you said, uh, like a heavy dot. Yeah, a
heavy dot could be the depression where a stone was insane.
That's a good one. Who is that Robert Kaplan? Thanks?
Mr Kaplan? Um? Well, I guess I feel like we've
kind of done a pretty good set up here, Chuck.
(02:59):
I think so. Do We've talked about how zero is multifaceted, um,
and you we talked about the Arabs and the Indians, right, yeah, um,
and we have to go back even further. Two. First,
find when Zero made itself known to get the way
back machine. Let's I think, let's blow the dust off
(03:21):
of this thing that was right at you. I think
this thing still works. Let's find out you're ready. Yeah, hey,
look at their wow lit up like a flex capacitor. Um.
We're back in ancient Sumer and these baked clay tablets
(03:41):
haven't even been baked yet. It's still wet. Look, wow,
Jo was here? Cool? Um, so Chuck, if you'll look
at this clay tablet, do you see these two uh
diagonal lines, these little wedges, those, my friend, represent nothing
(04:01):
really and the reason they're there is because round about
this time somebody figured out they ran into a problem
and when they were making some sort of tax record
or grain inventory that um, you know, showing that basically
writing out three thousand lines there's a three thousand heads
of cattle doesn't make any sense. But let's say you
(04:24):
have UM three hundred. You have three thousand heads of cattle,
and all you have are the ways to represent three
hundred heads of cattle. There's a big difference, right, there's
an extra digit in there, and that those two diagonal
lines were used to represent one of those digits when
there was not any digits there. But there's something to
(04:44):
the left of it and something to the right of it.
That's right. And Kaplan also said that before that even
they just would leave a blank space, sometimes before they
even came up with the little wedges. So what what
this is all based on is basically our numerical system,
where if you look at a string of numbers right,
(05:05):
starting from the right, you have the ones column, the
tens column, the hundreds, the thousands, the ten thousands, the
hundred thousands, and so on. You want me to keep
going at infinitum um and in each of these columns,
there may or may not be numbers present. So when
there are numbers present, we have our friends zero to
(05:26):
serve as what's considered a placeholder. Yeah. Makes I mean
it's very easy to just say, well, the now, but
way back then before there was a zero that you know,
we take it very much for granted. This is huge.
That's changed everything, changed everything, um, all of a sudden
now because I mean we said there's a big difference
(05:47):
between three thousand head of cattle and three hundred head
of cattle. And by putting a zero there right saying this,
this column is represented, there's just not any in here.
You're not gonna find the two cattle that should be
in this, right, that changed everything. They changed everything. It
made there was frustrating before that, Yeah, like if only
there was something to put there. Yeah. And I guess
(06:10):
when they like, just trust me, I have two thousand cattle.
And I guess when they left the blank space that
got confusing because they could have thought it was an error.
So they figured we have to put something there so
they know it's not just an oversight, right exactly. And
that's the diaging the lines well in this Uh, I
think before it even became that standardized. It was they
(06:31):
use different things because they found a tablet from seven
and a dude use three little hooks to represent zero. Well,
that would have been after that, because the Sumerians were
doing this like years ago. Well it's probably hard to
get the word around, right, you know, three hooks. What
is this crud? Exactly? Um, So the Sumerians of the
(06:52):
first documented to to come up or stumble upon zero
as a placeholder, and then it was codified with the
invention of the advocus, which uses you know, our numerical
column system like we used today, um, which was invented
by the Babylonians about three right, smart folks back then.
(07:13):
So we have zero as a placeholder. We have this
understanding now that there's there's something out there like we
can represent nothingness. But it wasn't until um, the fifth
century a d in India where zero first comes about
as a concept as a number, which is equally groundbreaking. Yeah. Well,
this nothingness, we should point out, was not something that
(07:35):
people were comfortable with back then. True, oddly now it
seems odd, but to have something represent nothing made people
very uncomfortable. It was associated with chaos in the Great
void and even the sign of the devil. Yes, it was. Well,
I mean the if you look at the Christian theology, um,
(07:56):
the void, which is represented by zero or nothingness, was
the state of the universe before the creation of man.
Humans Uh seeks feel the same way too, although I
don't know how they felt about zero, but that was
there there. That's their conception as well. There was nothing,
there's void. Um. And then also void fits well with chaos,
(08:18):
which is the Christian conception of hell, like no one's
in charge. So yeah, it was avoided. I don't know.
I went back and look, Chuck after I wrote this article. Um,
when we were studying today, I went back and looked,
and I didn't find a lot of support for that.
I did see that, like, um, the during the Dark Ages,
monks kind of were probably they feared zero. Well Kaplan
(08:41):
mentioned it in his books. But I mean, it was
out there, but there's no well these people did this.
They killed this guy for saying the word zero. There
was nothing like that out there. I think. More more
to the point, it was the Romans who just didn't
use zero. And the West was built by Rome and um,
(09:01):
that's I think where the shunning of zero came from
not necessarily from fear, but just because the Roman numeral
system doesn't have zero. Yeah. I found where they flirted
with it at first, with the nullah in U l
l A, which they would represent with a little N.
But it clearly didn't take no, and they said it
(09:22):
We're not gonna use it at zero. Why would we
ever need zero? We don't need it as zero? Right
Did they talk like that back then too? Yeah, like
Vinny from Brooklyn, Sure, I think so. Uh So, where
are we in India? Yeah, we're in the fifth century
a d in India and a guy named um Arita.
(09:45):
Arita is possibly the person who invented zero really possible
or discovered as you like to say, thank you, Yes,
thank you for correcting me with my own words. That's
weird when they are your articles. So um, it is
pretty pretty much universally accepted that zero was created or
(10:07):
discovered in India, and then it spread pretty quickly over
to uh Islamic nations, Arab nations, um and the It
was the Arabs who taught a guy named Fibonacci Leonardo Pizza,
who was a great mathematician of the West. In the
(10:30):
I think the twelfth century or the thirteenth century. You know,
people are gonna say, do the Fibonacci number. Well, no, no, no,
people are gonna ask for that podcast. In fact, they've
already been asking for that podcast. Do you want to
do that one? Do you want to maybe? Probably not. Well,
Fibonacci was um the son of a customs officer in Algeria, Chuck,
(10:53):
and he had Arabic tutors and they said, hey, kid,
we're gonna teach you how to really do math. Because
by this time, by the I think the twelve hundreds
UM or the eleven hundreds of the talt century, uh,
the Arabs were very well versed in mathematics and the
West was still just complete idiots. Fortunately, Fibonacci was over
(11:15):
there getting tutored, and he figured out, wow, this is
really really important and introduced our Arabic numeral system which
we used today, uh, to the West through a book.
So you said he wrote a book. Did he write
the book? No, he wasn't the only one. Okay, no,
that's not true for the West. Yes, he wrote the book,
and then other people wrote treatises on his book. He
(11:37):
pretty much he was the the fulcrum, the hinge between
West and Middle East. Zero is a fulcrum, Yes, it
is um. So he was the one who introduced it
to the West. But again, I mean we say that
because we're Western writers, chuck. But it was very well
established for hundreds of years by the time Fibonacci heard
(12:00):
about zero yeah. And you also point out interestingly that
simultaneously and completely independently of India uh, in Central America,
the Maya were also uh beginning or already using zero
yeah to uh, mainly for their calendar, right, yeah, it
was there. It was the base of counting um, which
makes sense. It totally makes sense, and it makes for
(12:21):
a more accurate calendar. Right. So like for mine calendars,
like the day of the month would be zero day,
then one day, than two day, than three day and
so on. How would you say that though, because you
say first, second third, how would you say they had um?
They had different names for today, like Zula would be
zul or you know, mon or something like that. It
(12:43):
was like the rather than first, second third. They didn't
have numerals like that, right, like first, second third that's Arabic, right,
So to the Maya, it was like zul day, didn't
that Ghostbusters. I think so, but that was what Sumerian
Oh yeah, zul was Sumerians all come together. Um. So
that does make for a lot more accurate counting UM.
(13:04):
And that's one of the big flaws in our calendar,
the Gregorian calendar, is that there is no zero year.
Well and we all got that pointed out to us
quite uh through the to the media, especially when the
millennium turned because there's no year zero. Our decades in
our centuries and our millennia um actually occur at the
(13:25):
end of that year and at the beginning, like when
the clock struck midnight at two thousand and we all went, yeah,
new millennium, Not so, have we still had a year left?
Have we started counting from zero? Then? Yeah? In January first,
two thousand, that would have been the start of the
new millennium. But the the we started counting from one,
so one to two thousand nine years rather than two
(13:48):
thousand years. And there was one guy in every bar
trying to point out to as many people as he
could do you realize it's not even true, and he's like,
why isn't anyone buying me drinks? Why did are they
going to beat me up? Um. And I put a
little a little notation in there because I have trouble
(14:08):
wrapping my head around that sometimes. But the point is
there's ten single digit numbers in the Arabic numerical system
that we use, and it's zero through nine. Anything beyond
that isn't in the tens column er above, and thanks
to zero, we have a ten column exactly. Take it,
chuck uh. Well, Western astronomers they came up with a
(14:33):
system late seventeenth and early eighteenth century that designated calendar
year one b C is zero and then basically anything
above or below that would either be plus or minus.
So a B C or a D. Right, so uh
two a D would be minus one or no two
BC would be minus one BC. Yes, since we're not
(14:56):
living in a D, they just kind of screwed with
the BC a little bit. So right now we're in
plus two thousand twelve, yes, which also makes I mean
it's not just calendars. I mean zero lies between negative
one and one and serves as a fulcrum point for
basically all numbering, yeah, positive and negative. And that was
Jacques Cassini who came up with that um astronomical calendar.
(15:20):
What this Italians are all up on this stuff, weren't they. Yeah,
it's talk going to be French, but yeah it is
an Italian who knows, maybe northern Italian exactly. Um, but yeah,
so they he basically said, well, wait, why don't we
just choose one year to be zero and then we'll
just basically make it. We'll make the calendar based on
zero's rightful place of numbering, which is precisely between one
(15:43):
and negative one. There's a zero there. It doesn't just
go from negative one to one. Zero is, like you said,
the full crumb of all numbers. It spreads out infinitely
on either side. So it's not positive and it's not negative.
And um, so it's the only number that is non
positive and non negative if but it's neither a positive
number nor a negative number. Wrap your head around that one. Yeah,
(16:04):
you college students sitting around here at midnight, just gaze
up at the stars and try and figure that out.
Start counting, Start counting. It's also an integer, a whole number, right, Yes,
And uh, it's very handy when it comes up to
ratios and fractions, because a fraction can be written in
a couple of ways, either with the one on top
(16:25):
of the other or with a little decimal point. Yes,
and without those zeros you wouldn't be able to do that. No,
So the decimal system, um, basically you can look at
it is anything to the right of the decimal So
the tens, the hundreds, the thousands, right, the ten hundreds
(16:46):
about thank you. Yeah, you're getting as bad as um
they those are all encapsulated in that zero that's up
to positive one, right, yeah, because it's less than a
whole one. But it's not so much that it's negative one, right,
it's encapsulated by that zero. So all of these ratios,
all of the decimal system gives us these incredibly precise numbers,
(17:10):
whereas we can count in whole numbers to the right
of zero and positive whole numbers. That just goes on
and on and on and measures the vastness of the universe.
To go the other way, to go into infinite decimal
system that's encapsulated within zero. Let you measure the infantismal right, yeah,
so it's not like, oh it's between two and three, right,
(17:30):
I mean, try making like high quality machine parts using
whole numbers. You can't know. It can't be done. So
there's all sorts of things that would have never taken
place had zero not given rise to the decimal system,
or everything would be really big, you know, everything would
be like twice as large, Like the ten thousand year
clock wouldn't even work. Remember they were using like fractions
(17:50):
of an inch that still wouldn't work. Um, what else, Chuck, Well,
you point out, very astute lee some odd properties of
zero row and they are actually called the properties of zero,
because it's such a weird number that you have to
have properties to explain it exactly. So the which this
person called is the additive property of zero property. Add
(18:15):
zero to anything and you're gonna get that same thing.
This sounds very basic, same with subtracting. Sure, five plus
zeros five zero is five, right, and it is very basic.
But zero is the only number that doesn't affect another
number when it's added or subtracted to it, which is important.
It is any time a number is the only thing
(18:35):
of its kind, it's worth mentioning. Like pie. There's um,
which by the way, wouldn't exist without zero in the
decimal system, or any of those It wouldn't exist. To us, Um,
there's the additive inverse property of zero, where any numbers
that add up to zero are additive inverses of one another.
(18:56):
So negative five plus positive five, or just five as
they call it in positive land, equal zero. So negative
five and five are additive inverses of one another. Multiplying
from the time you're I think I learned in the
second grade my multiplication tables. I remember correctly. Ms. Anderson
and MS. Temple, Thank you very much. Uh. They taught
(19:20):
me that if you multiply any number by zero, you're
going to get zero. And as you point out, that
multiplication is really just a quicker way of adding things, shortcut. Yeah,
it's a shortcut. So the idea that a number can
be added zero times uh, or that zero can be
added to itself, that's when I get the most. Yeah,
(19:42):
it's just doesn't make any sense. Like you like, five
times zero doesn't mean zero plus zero. Plas zero place
zero place zero. That doesn't mean anything zero, right, what
about dividing by zero? Let me ask you. No, let
me ask you. This is the part where I was like,
nobody understands this. I don't feel very bad about this
because no one actually understands it. Um, there's no So
(20:05):
there's these other properties of zero that cover like additive
inverse edition and subtracting multiplication. There is no property that
says why you can't divide by zero because it's so
nonsensical it doesn't even exist. The concept of dividing by
zero doesn't really actually exist except in you know, the
imagination of people. I bet mathematicians have tried, though, like
(20:28):
frustratingly tried. You can't. There's nothing you can do, and
they don't even fully understand why. But the um. The
best explanation that I saw was that it has to
do kind of with the multiplication property, right to where
if you divide something, so like six divided by two
equals three. So if you can divide a number, um,
(20:50):
the result of that number by the divisor so in
this case, three and two multiplied by one another should
equal the dividend, which just six. Now, if you divide
six by zero, right, it doesn't equal anything. It should
equal zero if you multiply it, it's like an equal to. Uh.
(21:11):
That's the best example I could come up with. Yeah,
that makes sense, so it shouldn't. Well, I mean, you're
completely insane. It makes sense that it doesn't make sense. Okay,
that's what I'm saying, and Stephen might had a joke.
He said that black holes are where God tried to
divide by zero. You like, that's good Stephen, right his Uh,
(21:35):
I still did that his one bit. Sometimes when UM
people get in the car with me, I say, hey,
put your seat belt on. I want to try something.
That was one of his jokes. Nice, He's like, just
try that whenever someone gets in a car. He's good. Um.
And then also there's the property of zero exponent, which
also doesn't make any sense. Chuck, there's UM. You know,
there's negative exponents, like numbers to the negative power tend
(21:56):
to the negative five because of this. Mathematically it works out,
but I don't understand it. UM numbers to the zero
power equal one. That doesn't make any sense because zero
multiplied by something should equal zero, not one. That's how
it works out. Though it's a magical, mysterious number. At
my hero zero and I ran across one other thing
(22:18):
that I thought was pretty cool. UM. The The the
evidence of um Islamic countries comfort with zero concept and
Western countries discomfort with it, can be found still today
on elevators in countries where the Ottoman turks or UM
any other Islamic nation um conquered and ruled for a while,
(22:41):
you're still going to find evidence of a comfort with zero,
like in Hungary. If you look in Spain, I here too,
if you look on an elevator, the ground floor is zero.
In any floor beneath that is a negative number, really
like the basement parking, like negative one, negative two? Isn't
that cool? And apparently that's because of the presence of
(23:03):
the Turks who were there for a while. Wow, yeah,
I mean they didn't have elevators then, but apparently, like
the that's like, you don't see a floor zero in
the West, No, you don't. We just don't like zero
that much. Or a fourth thirteen right, although it is thirteen.
We've had that talk before. I think, yeah, what do
we have here? P one, P two in our building?
(23:24):
Definitely not negatives. Let's say that from now on, Like
what love you parked on? I'm on negative four, I
will say that what I will say that right now,
I'm on negative three. I'm on negative two. Go and
chuck um. And also, let's see you can type zero.
You got anything else? You're just happy to be done
with this one? No, this was actually really good. Um,
(23:47):
I don't know about that. Zero is my hero a
magic number. If you type in zero and this the
search bar how stuff works dot Com, it will bring
up this article, including a cool little story that we
didn't get to about a great parent. True. Uh. And
also I highly encourage if if this even piqued your
interest at all, I highly encourage you to read zero
(24:09):
in four Dimensions, which is an article you can find
online from two thousand to by a guy named Hassain Arsham,
and he explains in much greater depth in detail like
zero and what's so cool about it? Or if you
want to really get into it, Robert Kaplan wrote a
whole book on it. And I believe it comes to
the length of rope and a buttressed beme to hang
(24:31):
yourself at the at the end, we should do one
on three, all right. I pitched that article a long
time ago. A long time ago, remember on on three?
I remember, so those would be our two. No, I'd
have to write it now, so I don't know if
it all ever happened, get to it. I wrote this
so we could do this. You're more of a man
than me, um, I think at some point in the
(24:53):
not too distant past. Check, I said, search bar. So
that means it's time for listener. Now hold on, Josh,
I think you have a quick announcement first, I do.
I psyched myself out. It's crazy, Um, Chuck. We're going
to be in Austin, Texas on March eleventh and twelveth
It's Sunday and Monday for south By Southwest Interactive. Right,
(25:14):
We're going to have our own panel. We're not even
on a panel talking with some other shmos about like
Mashable or Twitter the like. We are doing a live
podcast like we did last year. Remember the how UFOs
worked one, the really awkward, uncomfortable one. I started crying.
We're gonna do something like that. Um. And we don't
know what the topic is yet, but if you are
a badge holder for south By Southwest, come see us. Uh.
(25:37):
It's going to be on Sunday, March eleventh at three
thirty hour long. We don't know where yet, but we
will announce maybe on the internet like Twitter or um
uh Facebook, and on the show. We'll find out soon.
Sure yeah um. And if you aren't a badge holder
at south By Southwest, but you like to go and
(25:57):
just kick around Austin. You'll be there on Monday. We're
gonna throw a party and we can't reveal really the
details of that yet, but I just know that we'll
be in town. We'll be doing cool stuff. Okay. I
think there will be live music. I think there will
be live comedy, and I think there will be some
other special treats, yes, like those like smarties. The roles
of Smarties. We may have those good. Uh they beat
(26:20):
the tar out of Neco wafers, don't they. Okay, well,
that's it for us making fun of old time and candy,
which means it's time for listener mail. Indeed, I'm gonna
call this uh coffee including coffee song from a listener. Okay,
this is from Ashley. Great work on the Coffee podcast, gents.
I could have saved my last four years of work
(26:43):
at a cafe just by listening to y'all. Really though,
it was a splendid way to spend my days getting
to know the locals in downtown Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, North America.
Or have we entered the song yet because he rhymed
a second again. No, that is not the song. Okay,
that's coming. Uh, she's just a rhymer by nature, I think.
(27:05):
While I can't say I'm a total coffee snobber expert,
I do have a thought on the old wise Starbucks
a bitter debate. I think that part of the taste
comes from the number of beans used in the blend.
For instance, at the cafe I used to run, we
served both Milano Coffee and then Umbria. I believe that
each of these companies, plus the coffee I now drink
called Intelligentsia, contains a blend of beans as many as
(27:28):
fifteen different kinds to create that smooth balance I really love.
In my americanos, it's her last name Starbuck. No no no, no,
she's saying Starbucks doesn't use the blend. It's more better.
Her name is mom and pop the last name. As
far as I understand, Starbucks may use this view as
one to three types of beans and their espresso blend.
(27:50):
Like I said, I think this may be a part
of the story, but not likely the whole story. On
another note, since leaving the cafe, I now work with
a group of software nerds who used to visit my
cafe on a regular basis, So now I too get
to go for coffee every day. It's one of the
parts of the job, pun intended. We have, uh, we
even have a little coffee song. And she recorded this
(28:13):
and sent it to us. So we're going to play
that right now. Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, all day long.
When I need some coffee, I sing the coffee song.
Well that's the g rated version I learned. This is
the other version I learned a little bit later on.
It goes like this, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee all day long.
If I don't give my coffee, I'll punched at in this.
(28:36):
So how about that, Josh, that was something else. Thank
you Ashley for that. Yeah, thanks a lot, she says.
As you can tell, we're a bit mad about our
coffee drinking. It's the new smoke break for us. What, um,
where where where is that person? She didn't say, Oh no,
she did say, I'm sorry, Edmonton, Alberta. That's right, that's right. Well,
(28:58):
thank you very much for that. We appreciate too, and um,
your co workers for making that song, for listening, for
drinking coffee, indeed, for caring. That's great. Yeah. Um, if
you have a song, Chuck, we get them from time
to time, and I feel like we should we should
be better about playing them. Yes, Uh, we want to
hear it. You can, I guess make it as like
(29:20):
an MP three MP four. MP three is good, right, Jerry,
MP three? Uh? And uh. You can send it to us.
You can tweet to us and tell us it's on
the way at a s Y s K podcast. You
can go onto Facebook and tell us it's on the
way at Facebook dot com, slash stuff you should know.
And you can actually send it to us at stuff
(29:41):
podcast at Discovery dot com. What Discovery dot com? Okay,
that's Stuff podcast at Discovery dot com for moral this
and thousands of other topics. VI is it how stuff
works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click
(30:02):
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It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know?
From house stock Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, This Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
and this is a rare, unusual mathematical uh episode of
(00:25):
the Stuff you Should Know? Yes, And I'm just gonna
step out of the room and I'll be back in
what going to do this? This is not gonna be
another yo yo episode. I I just hate math. This
was this was This is not math heavy at all.
It's about the history of zero. It's about the weirdness
of zero, my hero zero exactly until you people counted
(00:48):
on their fingers and toes. I posted that to down Facebook.
I don't know what that is. The Schoolhouse rock. I
don't know. He Rosiero. I don't remember that one until
you came along. Keep going it on her fingers and those.
It's basically you would appreciate it because it sings what
you wrote. Oh, that's great in a much more basic way.
(01:08):
But basically trying to teach kids how amazing zero is
and don't discount it as just it's a number. It's
not the absence of something. Well, there's a lot, there's
a bunch to it. It's many many things. It's a
multi faceted uh number, the multifaceted entity. Well, nol is
(01:29):
German for zero, did you know that? But kiss is
I believe Spanish for zero, zilch zilch is cajun. I
did actually get a little etymology research. Originally Sanskrit was sonya,
which meant empty. Then later arabrick was sepia or nothing.
(01:50):
Then Italian was the foh, and then finally French gave
us zero, right, and it wasn't you know we represent
zero as something that looks confusingly like an oh yeah right.
That was the Europeans who did that. Prior to that,
the Arabs and I believe the Indians too, um represented
zero with a heavy dot. You know where that might
(02:14):
have come from Robert Kaplan's book The Nothing That is
a Natural History of Zero. He speculates that the shape
comes from the round depression left in the sand a
sand counting board. Once you remove a stone from it,
sence would be a round thing. That's what he he thinks,
he speculates, But that wouldn't nevern't have been the Europeans
(02:38):
because the Europeans that came up with that. Well no,
but you said, uh, like a heavy dot. Yeah, a
heavy dot could be the depression where a stone was insane.
That's a good one. Who is that Robert Kaplan? Thanks?
Mr Kaplan? Um? Well, I guess I feel like we've
kind of done a pretty good set up here, Chuck.
(02:59):
I think so. Do We've talked about how zero is multifaceted, um,
and you we talked about the Arabs and the Indians, right, yeah, um,
and we have to go back even further. Two. First,
find when Zero made itself known to get the way
back machine. Let's I think, let's blow the dust off
(03:21):
of this thing that was right at you. I think
this thing still works. Let's find out you're ready. Yeah, hey,
look at their wow lit up like a flex capacitor. Um.
We're back in ancient Sumer and these baked clay tablets
(03:41):
haven't even been baked yet. It's still wet. Look, wow,
Jo was here? Cool? Um, so Chuck, if you'll look
at this clay tablet, do you see these two uh
diagonal lines, these little wedges, those, my friend, represent nothing
(04:01):
really and the reason they're there is because round about
this time somebody figured out they ran into a problem
and when they were making some sort of tax record
or grain inventory that um, you know, showing that basically
writing out three thousand lines there's a three thousand heads
of cattle doesn't make any sense. But let's say you
(04:24):
have UM three hundred. You have three thousand heads of cattle,
and all you have are the ways to represent three
hundred heads of cattle. There's a big difference, right, there's
an extra digit in there, and that those two diagonal
lines were used to represent one of those digits when
there was not any digits there. But there's something to
(04:44):
the left of it and something to the right of it.
That's right. And Kaplan also said that before that even
they just would leave a blank space, sometimes before they
even came up with the little wedges. So what what
this is all based on is basically our numerical system,
where if you look at a string of numbers right,
(05:05):
starting from the right, you have the ones column, the
tens column, the hundreds, the thousands, the ten thousands, the
hundred thousands, and so on. You want me to keep
going at infinitum um and in each of these columns,
there may or may not be numbers present. So when
there are numbers present, we have our friends zero to
(05:26):
serve as what's considered a placeholder. Yeah. Makes I mean
it's very easy to just say, well, the now, but
way back then before there was a zero that you know,
we take it very much for granted. This is huge.
That's changed everything, changed everything, um, all of a sudden
now because I mean we said there's a big difference
(05:47):
between three thousand head of cattle and three hundred head
of cattle. And by putting a zero there right saying this,
this column is represented, there's just not any in here.
You're not gonna find the two cattle that should be
in this, right, that changed everything. They changed everything. It
made there was frustrating before that, Yeah, like if only
there was something to put there. Yeah. And I guess
(06:10):
when they like, just trust me, I have two thousand cattle.
And I guess when they left the blank space that
got confusing because they could have thought it was an error.
So they figured we have to put something there so
they know it's not just an oversight, right exactly. And
that's the diaging the lines well in this Uh, I
think before it even became that standardized. It was they
(06:31):
use different things because they found a tablet from seven
and a dude use three little hooks to represent zero. Well,
that would have been after that, because the Sumerians were
doing this like years ago. Well it's probably hard to
get the word around, right, you know, three hooks. What
is this crud? Exactly? Um, So the Sumerians of the
(06:52):
first documented to to come up or stumble upon zero
as a placeholder, and then it was codified with the
invention of the advocus, which uses you know, our numerical
column system like we used today, um, which was invented
by the Babylonians about three right, smart folks back then.
(07:13):
So we have zero as a placeholder. We have this
understanding now that there's there's something out there like we
can represent nothingness. But it wasn't until um, the fifth
century a d in India where zero first comes about
as a concept as a number, which is equally groundbreaking. Yeah. Well,
this nothingness, we should point out, was not something that
(07:35):
people were comfortable with back then. True, oddly now it
seems odd, but to have something represent nothing made people
very uncomfortable. It was associated with chaos in the Great
void and even the sign of the devil. Yes, it was. Well,
I mean the if you look at the Christian theology, um,
(07:56):
the void, which is represented by zero or nothingness, was
the state of the universe before the creation of man.
Humans Uh seeks feel the same way too, although I
don't know how they felt about zero, but that was
there there. That's their conception as well. There was nothing,
there's void. Um. And then also void fits well with chaos,
(08:18):
which is the Christian conception of hell, like no one's
in charge. So yeah, it was avoided. I don't know.
I went back and look, Chuck after I wrote this article. Um,
when we were studying today, I went back and looked,
and I didn't find a lot of support for that.
I did see that, like, um, the during the Dark Ages,
monks kind of were probably they feared zero. Well Kaplan
(08:41):
mentioned it in his books. But I mean, it was
out there, but there's no well these people did this.
They killed this guy for saying the word zero. There
was nothing like that out there. I think. More more
to the point, it was the Romans who just didn't
use zero. And the West was built by Rome and um,
(09:01):
that's I think where the shunning of zero came from
not necessarily from fear, but just because the Roman numeral
system doesn't have zero. Yeah. I found where they flirted
with it at first, with the nullah in U l
l A, which they would represent with a little N.
But it clearly didn't take no, and they said it
(09:22):
We're not gonna use it at zero. Why would we
ever need zero? We don't need it as zero? Right
Did they talk like that back then too? Yeah, like
Vinny from Brooklyn, Sure, I think so. Uh So, where
are we in India? Yeah, we're in the fifth century
a d in India and a guy named um Arita.
(09:45):
Arita is possibly the person who invented zero really possible
or discovered as you like to say, thank you, Yes,
thank you for correcting me with my own words. That's
weird when they are your articles. So um, it is
pretty pretty much universally accepted that zero was created or
(10:07):
discovered in India, and then it spread pretty quickly over
to uh Islamic nations, Arab nations, um and the It
was the Arabs who taught a guy named Fibonacci Leonardo Pizza,
who was a great mathematician of the West. In the
(10:30):
I think the twelfth century or the thirteenth century. You know,
people are gonna say, do the Fibonacci number. Well, no, no, no,
people are gonna ask for that podcast. In fact, they've
already been asking for that podcast. Do you want to
do that one? Do you want to maybe? Probably not. Well,
Fibonacci was um the son of a customs officer in Algeria, Chuck,
(10:53):
and he had Arabic tutors and they said, hey, kid,
we're gonna teach you how to really do math. Because
by this time, by the I think the twelve hundreds
UM or the eleven hundreds of the talt century, uh,
the Arabs were very well versed in mathematics and the
West was still just complete idiots. Fortunately, Fibonacci was over
(11:15):
there getting tutored, and he figured out, wow, this is
really really important and introduced our Arabic numeral system which
we used today, uh, to the West through a book.
So you said he wrote a book. Did he write
the book? No, he wasn't the only one. Okay, no,
that's not true for the West. Yes, he wrote the book,
and then other people wrote treatises on his book. He
(11:37):
pretty much he was the the fulcrum, the hinge between
West and Middle East. Zero is a fulcrum, Yes, it
is um. So he was the one who introduced it
to the West. But again, I mean we say that
because we're Western writers, chuck. But it was very well
established for hundreds of years by the time Fibonacci heard
(12:00):
about zero yeah. And you also point out interestingly that
simultaneously and completely independently of India uh, in Central America,
the Maya were also uh beginning or already using zero
yeah to uh, mainly for their calendar, right, yeah, it
was there. It was the base of counting um, which
makes sense. It totally makes sense, and it makes for
(12:21):
a more accurate calendar. Right. So like for mine calendars,
like the day of the month would be zero day,
then one day, than two day, than three day and
so on. How would you say that though, because you
say first, second third, how would you say they had um?
They had different names for today, like Zula would be
zul or you know, mon or something like that. It
(12:43):
was like the rather than first, second third. They didn't
have numerals like that, right, like first, second third that's Arabic, right,
So to the Maya, it was like zul day, didn't
that Ghostbusters. I think so, but that was what Sumerian
Oh yeah, zul was Sumerians all come together. Um. So
that does make for a lot more accurate counting UM.
(13:04):
And that's one of the big flaws in our calendar,
the Gregorian calendar, is that there is no zero year.
Well and we all got that pointed out to us
quite uh through the to the media, especially when the
millennium turned because there's no year zero. Our decades in
our centuries and our millennia um actually occur at the
(13:25):
end of that year and at the beginning, like when
the clock struck midnight at two thousand and we all went, yeah,
new millennium, Not so, have we still had a year left?
Have we started counting from zero? Then? Yeah? In January first,
two thousand, that would have been the start of the
new millennium. But the the we started counting from one,
so one to two thousand nine years rather than two
(13:48):
thousand years. And there was one guy in every bar
trying to point out to as many people as he
could do you realize it's not even true, and he's like,
why isn't anyone buying me drinks? Why did are they
going to beat me up? Um. And I put a
little a little notation in there because I have trouble
(14:08):
wrapping my head around that sometimes. But the point is
there's ten single digit numbers in the Arabic numerical system
that we use, and it's zero through nine. Anything beyond
that isn't in the tens column er above, and thanks
to zero, we have a ten column exactly. Take it,
chuck uh. Well, Western astronomers they came up with a
(14:33):
system late seventeenth and early eighteenth century that designated calendar
year one b C is zero and then basically anything
above or below that would either be plus or minus.
So a B C or a D. Right, so uh
two a D would be minus one or no two
BC would be minus one BC. Yes, since we're not
(14:56):
living in a D, they just kind of screwed with
the BC a little bit. So right now we're in
plus two thousand twelve, yes, which also makes I mean
it's not just calendars. I mean zero lies between negative
one and one and serves as a fulcrum point for
basically all numbering, yeah, positive and negative. And that was
Jacques Cassini who came up with that um astronomical calendar.
(15:20):
What this Italians are all up on this stuff, weren't they. Yeah,
it's talk going to be French, but yeah it is
an Italian who knows, maybe northern Italian exactly. Um, but yeah,
so they he basically said, well, wait, why don't we
just choose one year to be zero and then we'll
just basically make it. We'll make the calendar based on
zero's rightful place of numbering, which is precisely between one
(15:43):
and negative one. There's a zero there. It doesn't just
go from negative one to one. Zero is, like you said,
the full crumb of all numbers. It spreads out infinitely
on either side. So it's not positive and it's not negative.
And um, so it's the only number that is non
positive and non negative if but it's neither a positive
number nor a negative number. Wrap your head around that one. Yeah,
(16:04):
you college students sitting around here at midnight, just gaze
up at the stars and try and figure that out.
Start counting, Start counting. It's also an integer, a whole number, right, Yes,
And uh, it's very handy when it comes up to
ratios and fractions, because a fraction can be written in
a couple of ways, either with the one on top
(16:25):
of the other or with a little decimal point. Yes,
and without those zeros you wouldn't be able to do that. No,
So the decimal system, um, basically you can look at
it is anything to the right of the decimal So
the tens, the hundreds, the thousands, right, the ten hundreds
(16:46):
about thank you. Yeah, you're getting as bad as um
they those are all encapsulated in that zero that's up
to positive one, right, yeah, because it's less than a
whole one. But it's not so much that it's negative one, right,
it's encapsulated by that zero. So all of these ratios,
all of the decimal system gives us these incredibly precise numbers,
(17:10):
whereas we can count in whole numbers to the right
of zero and positive whole numbers. That just goes on
and on and on and measures the vastness of the universe.
To go the other way, to go into infinite decimal
system that's encapsulated within zero. Let you measure the infantismal right, yeah,
so it's not like, oh it's between two and three, right,
(17:30):
I mean, try making like high quality machine parts using
whole numbers. You can't know. It can't be done. So
there's all sorts of things that would have never taken
place had zero not given rise to the decimal system,
or everything would be really big, you know, everything would
be like twice as large, Like the ten thousand year
clock wouldn't even work. Remember they were using like fractions
(17:50):
of an inch that still wouldn't work. Um, what else, Chuck, Well,
you point out, very astute lee some odd properties of
zero row and they are actually called the properties of zero,
because it's such a weird number that you have to
have properties to explain it exactly. So the which this
person called is the additive property of zero property. Add
(18:15):
zero to anything and you're gonna get that same thing.
This sounds very basic, same with subtracting. Sure, five plus
zeros five zero is five, right, and it is very basic.
But zero is the only number that doesn't affect another
number when it's added or subtracted to it, which is important.
It is any time a number is the only thing
(18:35):
of its kind, it's worth mentioning. Like pie. There's um,
which by the way, wouldn't exist without zero in the
decimal system, or any of those It wouldn't exist. To us, Um,
there's the additive inverse property of zero, where any numbers
that add up to zero are additive inverses of one another.
(18:56):
So negative five plus positive five, or just five as
they call it in positive land, equal zero. So negative
five and five are additive inverses of one another. Multiplying
from the time you're I think I learned in the
second grade my multiplication tables. I remember correctly. Ms. Anderson
and MS. Temple, Thank you very much. Uh. They taught
(19:20):
me that if you multiply any number by zero, you're
going to get zero. And as you point out, that
multiplication is really just a quicker way of adding things, shortcut. Yeah,
it's a shortcut. So the idea that a number can
be added zero times uh, or that zero can be
added to itself, that's when I get the most. Yeah,
(19:42):
it's just doesn't make any sense. Like you like, five
times zero doesn't mean zero plus zero. Plas zero place
zero place zero. That doesn't mean anything zero, right, what
about dividing by zero? Let me ask you. No, let
me ask you. This is the part where I was like,
nobody understands this. I don't feel very bad about this
because no one actually understands it. Um, there's no So
(20:05):
there's these other properties of zero that cover like additive
inverse edition and subtracting multiplication. There is no property that
says why you can't divide by zero because it's so
nonsensical it doesn't even exist. The concept of dividing by
zero doesn't really actually exist except in you know, the
imagination of people. I bet mathematicians have tried, though, like
(20:28):
frustratingly tried. You can't. There's nothing you can do, and
they don't even fully understand why. But the um. The
best explanation that I saw was that it has to
do kind of with the multiplication property, right to where
if you divide something, so like six divided by two
equals three. So if you can divide a number, um,
(20:50):
the result of that number by the divisor so in
this case, three and two multiplied by one another should
equal the dividend, which just six. Now, if you divide
six by zero, right, it doesn't equal anything. It should
equal zero if you multiply it, it's like an equal to. Uh.
(21:11):
That's the best example I could come up with. Yeah,
that makes sense, so it shouldn't. Well, I mean, you're
completely insane. It makes sense that it doesn't make sense. Okay,
that's what I'm saying, and Stephen might had a joke.
He said that black holes are where God tried to
divide by zero. You like, that's good Stephen, right his Uh,
(21:35):
I still did that his one bit. Sometimes when UM
people get in the car with me, I say, hey,
put your seat belt on. I want to try something.
That was one of his jokes. Nice, He's like, just
try that whenever someone gets in a car. He's good. Um.
And then also there's the property of zero exponent, which
also doesn't make any sense. Chuck, there's UM. You know,
there's negative exponents, like numbers to the negative power tend
(21:56):
to the negative five because of this. Mathematically it works out,
but I don't understand it. UM numbers to the zero
power equal one. That doesn't make any sense because zero
multiplied by something should equal zero, not one. That's how
it works out. Though it's a magical, mysterious number. At
my hero zero and I ran across one other thing
(22:18):
that I thought was pretty cool. UM. The The the
evidence of um Islamic countries comfort with zero concept and
Western countries discomfort with it, can be found still today
on elevators in countries where the Ottoman turks or UM
any other Islamic nation um conquered and ruled for a while,
(22:41):
you're still going to find evidence of a comfort with zero,
like in Hungary. If you look in Spain, I here too,
if you look on an elevator, the ground floor is zero.
In any floor beneath that is a negative number, really
like the basement parking, like negative one, negative two? Isn't
that cool? And apparently that's because of the presence of
(23:03):
the Turks who were there for a while. Wow, yeah,
I mean they didn't have elevators then, but apparently, like
the that's like, you don't see a floor zero in
the West, No, you don't. We just don't like zero
that much. Or a fourth thirteen right, although it is thirteen.
We've had that talk before. I think, yeah, what do
we have here? P one, P two in our building?
(23:24):
Definitely not negatives. Let's say that from now on, Like
what love you parked on? I'm on negative four, I
will say that what I will say that right now,
I'm on negative three. I'm on negative two. Go and
chuck um. And also, let's see you can type zero.
You got anything else? You're just happy to be done
with this one? No, this was actually really good. Um,
(23:47):
I don't know about that. Zero is my hero a
magic number. If you type in zero and this the
search bar how stuff works dot Com, it will bring
up this article, including a cool little story that we
didn't get to about a great parent. True. Uh. And
also I highly encourage if if this even piqued your
interest at all, I highly encourage you to read zero
(24:09):
in four Dimensions, which is an article you can find
online from two thousand to by a guy named Hassain Arsham,
and he explains in much greater depth in detail like
zero and what's so cool about it? Or if you
want to really get into it, Robert Kaplan wrote a
whole book on it. And I believe it comes to
the length of rope and a buttressed beme to hang
(24:31):
yourself at the at the end, we should do one
on three, all right. I pitched that article a long
time ago. A long time ago, remember on on three?
I remember, so those would be our two. No, I'd
have to write it now, so I don't know if
it all ever happened, get to it. I wrote this
so we could do this. You're more of a man
than me, um, I think at some point in the
(24:53):
not too distant past. Check, I said, search bar. So
that means it's time for listener. Now hold on, Josh,
I think you have a quick announcement first, I do.
I psyched myself out. It's crazy, Um, Chuck. We're going
to be in Austin, Texas on March eleventh and twelveth
It's Sunday and Monday for south By Southwest Interactive. Right,
(25:14):
We're going to have our own panel. We're not even
on a panel talking with some other shmos about like
Mashable or Twitter the like. We are doing a live
podcast like we did last year. Remember the how UFOs
worked one, the really awkward, uncomfortable one. I started crying.
We're gonna do something like that. Um. And we don't
know what the topic is yet, but if you are
a badge holder for south By Southwest, come see us. Uh.
(25:37):
It's going to be on Sunday, March eleventh at three
thirty hour long. We don't know where yet, but we
will announce maybe on the internet like Twitter or um
uh Facebook, and on the show. We'll find out soon.
Sure yeah um. And if you aren't a badge holder
at south By Southwest, but you like to go and
(25:57):
just kick around Austin. You'll be there on Monday. We're
gonna throw a party and we can't reveal really the
details of that yet, but I just know that we'll
be in town. We'll be doing cool stuff. Okay. I
think there will be live music. I think there will
be live comedy, and I think there will be some
other special treats, yes, like those like smarties. The roles
of Smarties. We may have those good. Uh they beat
(26:20):
the tar out of Neco wafers, don't they. Okay, well,
that's it for us making fun of old time and candy,
which means it's time for listener mail. Indeed, I'm gonna
call this uh coffee including coffee song from a listener. Okay,
this is from Ashley. Great work on the Coffee podcast, gents.
I could have saved my last four years of work
(26:43):
at a cafe just by listening to y'all. Really though,
it was a splendid way to spend my days getting
to know the locals in downtown Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, North America.
Or have we entered the song yet because he rhymed
a second again. No, that is not the song. Okay,
that's coming. Uh, she's just a rhymer by nature, I think.
(27:05):
While I can't say I'm a total coffee snobber expert,
I do have a thought on the old wise Starbucks
a bitter debate. I think that part of the taste
comes from the number of beans used in the blend.
For instance, at the cafe I used to run, we
served both Milano Coffee and then Umbria. I believe that
each of these companies, plus the coffee I now drink
called Intelligentsia, contains a blend of beans as many as
(27:28):
fifteen different kinds to create that smooth balance I really love.
In my americanos, it's her last name Starbuck. No no no, no,
she's saying Starbucks doesn't use the blend. It's more better.
Her name is mom and pop the last name. As
far as I understand, Starbucks may use this view as
one to three types of beans and their espresso blend.
(27:50):
Like I said, I think this may be a part
of the story, but not likely the whole story. On
another note, since leaving the cafe, I now work with
a group of software nerds who used to visit my
cafe on a regular basis, So now I too get
to go for coffee every day. It's one of the
parts of the job, pun intended. We have, uh, we
even have a little coffee song. And she recorded this
(28:13):
and sent it to us. So we're going to play
that right now. Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, all day long.
When I need some coffee, I sing the coffee song.
Well that's the g rated version I learned. This is
the other version I learned a little bit later on.
It goes like this, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee all day long.
If I don't give my coffee, I'll punched at in this.
(28:36):
So how about that, Josh, that was something else. Thank
you Ashley for that. Yeah, thanks a lot, she says.
As you can tell, we're a bit mad about our
coffee drinking. It's the new smoke break for us. What, um,
where where where is that person? She didn't say, Oh no,
she did say, I'm sorry, Edmonton, Alberta. That's right, that's right. Well,
(28:58):
thank you very much for that. We appreciate too, and um,
your co workers for making that song, for listening, for
drinking coffee, indeed, for caring. That's great. Yeah. Um, if
you have a song, Chuck, we get them from time
to time, and I feel like we should we should
be better about playing them. Yes, Uh, we want to
hear it. You can, I guess make it as like
(29:20):
an MP three MP four. MP three is good, right, Jerry,
MP three? Uh? And uh. You can send it to us.
You can tweet to us and tell us it's on
the way at a s Y s K podcast. You
can go onto Facebook and tell us it's on the
way at Facebook dot com, slash stuff you should know.
And you can actually send it to us at stuff
(29:41):
podcast at Discovery dot com. What Discovery dot com? Okay,
that's Stuff podcast at Discovery dot com for moral this
and thousands of other topics. VI is it how stuff
works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click
(30:02):
on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.