Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
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.
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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3 Comments
Good, but I prefer another on the subject of zero,
I’ve recently read both Charles Seife’s “Zero:The Biography of a Dangerous Idea” and Robert Kaplan’s “The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero.” They are at the same time very similar and very different. They each follow an almost identical line, presenting the evolution of zero chronologically, and they each make almost identical stops along the way. The difference is in how they treat the steps in zero’s evolution which is conditioned by their differing metaphysical views. An illuminating example is how they each treat Aristotle’s role in zero’s history.
Charles Seife, from the beginning, reifies zero: the author accepts the misconception that zero is some sort of actually existing mystical force resting at the center of black holes. He doesn’t step back to take a look at the concept as concept. Nor does he appear to keep in mind that mathematics is the science of measurement, or that time is not a force or dimension, but merely a measurement of motion. This distorts his perspective, from which he attempts to refute Aristotle’s refutation of the existence of the void: for Seife, zero exists and is a force in and of itself. In Seife’s hands, zero certainly is a dangerous idea!
Robert Kaplan, on the other hand, delves deeper. His work is informed by an obvious love for history and classic literature, and while this results in many obscure literary asides, one feels that this book takes part in the Great Conversation. As a result he steps back and takes a critical look at the true meaning and usefulness of the concept as a concept. Is zero a number? Is it noun, adjective, or verb? Does it actually exist outside of conceptual consciousness or is it exclusively a tool of the mind?
Both authors follow zero’s role in the development of algebra and the calculus. As a math “infant”, this reader, having read Seife’s book first, found that the explanations of these two developments by Kaplan cleared away the haze, which Seife’s book was unable to do. I found both books to be illuminating. Seife’s book contains much valuable historical information. He did his homework. If one were to read only this book on the subject, one would have learned a great deal about the history of mathematics. But if I were to have to choose one to recommend, it would be Kaplan’s book. It is more informed, more seasoned, more honestly inductive in its approach.
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|It would have been better without the hyperbole,
This book is about the history of zero, from ancient times to modern concepts. It’s quite interesting and encompasses a lot of mathematics and philosophy as well as a bit of physics.
Although the book reads well, is nicely documented, and extensively researched, the author has a style that I found aggravating; his frequent use of poetic hyperbole. This limits the book’s value for someone unfamiliar with basic concepts in mathematics and physics.
I’m not sure why Seife choose this style. There seems to be a movement (hopefully short lived) among science writers to dress up science and mathematics in poetic, flowery language. Whatever the reason, science has good reason to use strict meanings for words and a disciplined approach to scientific concepts. When authors poetically use words in technically incorrect ways they can make the prose pretty, but they often create confusion.
For example, Saif says “Zero and infinity are eternally locked in a struggle to engulf all the numbers. Like a Manichaean nightmare, the two sit on opposite poles of the number sphere, sucking numbers in like tiny black holes.” [p. 145]
From a mathematical point of view this is pure gibberish. If one’s intent is to educate others about mathematics, such poetic hyperbole is not only useless, but counter productive as well. For folks who don’t already know a bit about mathematics, Seife’s book is as likely to confuse as to educate. For those who already understand the concepts, the poetry might be pleasing, but from an educational point of view the hyperbole found throughout this book is a definite stumbling block.
Another problem I had with this book is the way Seife misstates some key aspects in modern science. For example, on page 171 he asserts the classical definition of a vacuum: “The vacuum, by definition, has nothing in it – no particles, no light, nothing.” He then describes the quantum mechanical view of the vacuum, and the zero-point energy. Part of this explanation includes a nice description of the Casimir effect [p. 172], which is a measurement of the literal existence of the “virtual” particles predicted by Quantum Mechanics. What these experiments show is that these “virtual” particles actually exist, and can be detected by the force they exert on closely spaced metal plates. This is actually a beautiful example of how science changed our concept of the vacuum. Classically, we thought of the vacuum as having “nothing in it,” but Quantum Mechanics tells us that the classical vacuum cannot exist. But even after his nice explanation of the Casimir effect, Seife goes and spoils it with this absurd statement:
“Casimir realized that he had felt the force of nothing.” [p. 172] “This is the force of the vacuum, a force produced by nothing at all. This is the Casimir effect.”
It’s as if someone asserted that the space around us has “nothing in it,” and then rejoices when the wind touches his face, and runs off spouting “I’ve felt the force of nothing.” What the Casimir effect teaches us is that what we thought was “nothing at all” really is something, and that calling them “virtual” particles is just as silly as early mathematicians who called the square root of negative numbers “imaginary.”
There are other mistakes as well. For example, on page 178 he says: “The speed of light is the ultimate speed limit; you cannot reach it, much less exceed it. Nature has defended itself from an unruly zero.”
But this simply isn’t true. Even a casual reader knows that the statement “you cannot reach it” is wrong. After all, photons travel at the speed of light all the time. Furthermore, scientists have known for years that, given the right materials, both the phase velocity and the group velocity of light can exceed the speed of light in a vacuum [Optics and Photonics News, June 2002]. All this is consistent within the framework of relativity, but Seife’s hyperbole is likely to mislead the novice. Indeed, recent experiments showing these phenomena have resulted in all sorts of pundits on the Internet claiming that relativity had been falsified.
By getting all wound up with poetic hyperbole about nature “[defending] itself from an unruly zero” the author has, I fear, unwittingly contributed to the confusion of non-scientists about the science of relativity.
I don’t mean to give the impression that this is a bad book. I actually found most of it readable and pleasant. I enjoyed the historical aspects and appreciated how the author illustrates the influence of philosophy, and especially religion, in either advancing or retarding cultural acceptance of the concept of zero. I thought he did a particularly nice job of explaining the development of the calculus, and how the concept of zero played its part. As usual, the primary distractions were related to his use of…
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|Wonderful story of God’s banana peel,
It may well be the most potent force in the universe. The Greeks were scared to death of it. Aristotle wouldn’t permit it(and the Catholic Church’s vice-grip on Aristotelianism held Western science and mathematics back for centuries). But this force does not discriminate; it delights in tripping up secular science as well. Certain forms of mathematics must ignore it in order to work. String theory basically pretends it isn’t there. It is, as stated on the book jacket, “a timebomb ticking in the heart of astrophysics.”
Zero.
Charles Seife’s history of zero(and of infinity, which is awfully close to the same thing, as Seife elegantly demonstrates)is one of the most interesting and thought-provoking books I have read in a long time. There are mathematical and scientific equations and concepts aplenty here, but they were not daunting for this manifestly un-mathematic non-scientist. Seife has a fascinating story to tell and he tells it with enthusiasm. I cannot recommend Zero too highly.
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