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How the Human Brain Contends With the Strangeness of Zero

Zero, which was invented late in history, is special among numbers. New studies are uncovering how the brain creates something out of nothing.

In some ways, zero is just like any other number on a number line. But a new study suggests that the mind may treat the symbol for absence differently.

By Yasemin Saplakoglu via @QuantaMagazine

quantamagazine.org/how-the-hum…

#mathematics #neuroscience

Gwalior Fort, Inscription of the Pratīhāra period cut into the rock near the Caturbhuj temple, 9th century, where first carved Zero is depicted. via Wikipedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Chaturbhuj_Temple,_Gwalior

How the Human Brain Contends With the Strangeness of Zero | Quanta Magazine

Quanta Magazine
#mathematics #neuroscience
in reply to Project Gutenberg

Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC
Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC
• •
Zero is a number, but zero is not a finite number. You cannot understand zero without understanding infinity because zero is infinitely small. Also, you can have positive zero, negative zero, and neutral zero. If a series of numbers approaches zero, it can do so from the positive side, shrinking towards nothing, it can do so from the negative side, and it can oscillate around zero, with one number being slightly below zero and the next slightly above.
You can't divide anything by zero, but you can divide n by x and then let x approach zero. If you have a positive zero, it will go towards positive infinity, with negative zero, it will approach negative infinity, and with a neutral zero that is neither positive or negative, you will get a kind of neutral infinity that is both positive and negative.
Zero is crazy.
in reply to Project Gutenberg

argv minus one
argv minus one
• •

n×0=0 because, well, if someone gives you n apples 0 times, then you end up with 0 apples.

Division by zero is funny. For some purposes, n÷0=∞, but this result doesn't have the usual property that when a÷b=c then c×b=a, because ∞×0 yields 0, not n. So, we say it's undefined.

n^0=1 because, well, example: 2^2=1×2×2=4. 2^3=1×2×2×2=8. And so on. So, if the exponent is zero, then you just have the starting 1 left over, so n^0=1.

But none of these things are really “rules” as such.

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