Z is for ZERO

“What is a zero anyway?

 A zero signifies nothing, 

all it does is tell you nothing about nothing. 

Still, isn't zero also something meaningful,

 a number in and of itself? 

In jianpu notation,

 zero indicates a caesura, 

a pause or rest of indeterminate length.

 Does time that goes uncounted, unrecorded, still qualify as time? 

If zero is both everything and nothing, 

Does an empty life have exactly 

the same weight 

 as a full life? 

Is zero like the desert, 

both finite and infinite?”

- Madeleine Thien

Why Do We Make A Nothing Of Zero?

The Importance of Being Zero

Zero is an odd beast.
 

Without it, we would not have the binary code that makes our computer age possible.

Yet, it took until the 7th century for it to be recognized as a number in its own right, 

when the ancient Indians developed a numerical system that expressed zero with its own symbol. 

Since the development of this number system, which we still use today, 

zero has been instrumental in our exploration of mathematics.   

 The invention of zero represents an extremely important step 

in humankind's intellectual evolution ...

For if Nothing can come to mean Something so important,

Does that not imply that while we might feel worthless, 

we might essentially be Something beyond value if we but look at ourselves in the right light?

What Do You Think?