» Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Awesome book for anyone with a passing interest in Math(s)
Comment: Seife traces us back through time, touches on many, diverse, areas of mathematics and the politics they often shape. Can't recommend this enough as a gift to the geek in your life. Not terribly technical about anything in the book, and it's very easy to read.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good subject. Awful writing.
Comment: Zero is an excellent subject for a book, but Charles Seife's hyperbolic writing style is distracting and borderline absurd. He traces the history of zero from the early days of Greece and Egypt, follows its eventual rise in number theory, and finishes with its involvement in superstring theory. It's a fascinating journey, but his use of language is so sophomoric and over-the-top that it drains the text of any real value. By employing bombastic phrases like "men feared the nothingness of zero!" and "zero and infinity, everything and emptiness!" on every page, Seife transforms his book from a serious undertaking on an intriguing number to mere satire. Unfortunately it's not funny, simply tedious.

If you want to see how a good mathematics book should be written, try out "e: the story of a number."

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Seife Deciphers the Cipher
Comment: Here's a curious occurence. "The Indian name for zero is sunya, meaning "empty," which the Arabs turned into sifr. When some Western scholars described the new number to their colleagues, they turned sifr into a Latin-sounding word, yielding zephirus, which is the root of our word zero. Other Western mathematicians didn't change the word so heavily and called zero cifra, which became cipher." (p. 73). Now! - how coincidential or synchronicitous (you choose which) that the book about the Cipher is written by Seife?!

Phonological conspiracies aside, the book is a great read on several levels.

The level that didn't matter as much to me but might matter to you is the history of zero as a mathematical tool and its implication for physics and astrophysics.

The level that was of more interest to me was the interplay between zero as a philosophical concept (of void/nothingness, and as a 'twin' of infinity) with religion.

The level of discussion that is implicitly promised in the description of the book that, unfortunately, was - in my opinion - underdeveloped is the discussion of the Indian/Buddhist doctrine of Sunyata (from which the term zero stems - at least etymologically). It would have been of great interest to this reader-reviewer if Seife tracked the cultural trajectory of zero (as a concept) not only into the spheres of hard science but also into the studies of consciousness, phenomenology and spirituality. After all, the Eastern acceptance of zero as a math device - according to Seife himself - was not unrelated to zero's previous cultural "reincarnations" as a philosophical/cosmological/phenomenological tool. Seife comes very close to this phenomenological tangent when (on p. 76) he shares that the Hebrew term "ayin" stands for both "nothing" (a zero) and the pronoun "I." It would have been fascinating to see Seife expound on this item of Hebrew phenomenological terminology that equates Self with Nothingness (in parallel with the Hindu doctrine of Sunyata).

With this in mind, a reader looking to build bridges b/w mathematical nothingness and phenomenological nothingness (of Self) is likely to encounter a series of intriquing informational crumbs scattered throughout the book. As such, the book far better "services" the mathematical rather than philosophical community.

But this "imbalance" of coverage might - in and of itself - be the very story of zero. First there was Conceptual-Philosophical Zero, then Zero became Mathematical, then Zero became a Heretic, then Zero returned to the Mathematical Fold, and eventually became incorporated into Physics/Astrophysics - without ever looking back at its philosophical/phenomenological roots in human consciousness.

In sum,the book tells a fascinating story of a deconstruction of a construct of a Nothing... When talking about zero - it seems - it is hard to avoid circularity and tautology...

To a "buddhist" in training, here's a koan from the book: what do you get when you divide something by nothing? (hint: infinity)



Pavel Somov, Ph.D., Author of "Eating the Moment: 141 Mindful Practices to Overcome Overeating One Meal at a Time" (New Harbinger, 2008)

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Starts Great, Doesn't Finish Well
Comment: In Zero: the Biography of a Dangerous Idea, Seife first gives the history of the zero, in mathematics and social history, as well as it's non-history (why it was rejected in some cultures). He explains the resistance of the Greeks to the idea of the zero, why the Catholic Church rejected the zero and also how it was used in much earlier societies. These first chapters are well worth reading, blending history, math and mathematical history in a fascinating tale.

From there, the author begins to blend the idea of zero with other "dangerous" mathematical ideas (including "infinity"), and with his intermingling of ideas he looses the persuasiveness of his argument. It's hard to follow and/or believe that "zero" did this or that, when the zero he is talking about isn't actually "zero". Confused? So was I. He seemed to loose his focus and clarity from around chapter 6 to the end.

There are some rather high mathematical principals and examples throughout the book, which were difficult for me (not the world's best mathematician) to follow, and Seife often assumes that if one is reading Zero, then one is a mathematician, not a layman. This occurred more often in the later chapters which were troublesome in other ways, so I might just not have been as willing to try to understand the math, as I was having a hard time understanding the author's arguments.

On the whole, Zero: the Biography of a Dangerous Idea felt like a thesis that was expounded out to be a full-length book. It would have been much better, in my opinion, if Seife had stopped at around chapter 5, the first chapters being where his knowledge, insight and humor shone through.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Where Music, Art, Science, Logic, Infinity, Notingness and Religion Become One
Comment: This book can be read on two levels: 1) History, insight, personality and amusement or 2) technical terms and formula. Most of us will want to forget the second part and concentrate on the first part. Do that and this is a really good book.

Read for the first reason, this is a fascinating, enjoyable, intriguing, informative, even useful read. Read how some of the great names in mathmatics, history, logic, even religion, lived and died, how the church killed people because they believed in zero, the void, the nothingness and the infinity.

Read for the second reason--logic, high math and calculus--it is above most, if not all, casual readers.

The key is knowing how to read the book, knowing when to read, laugh, learn and be amused and when to skip over the technical "stuff."

This book is highly recommended--you will find it fascinating, amusing, sometimes amazing and educational--if you read it right!!

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