Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea - Charles Seife

Written by Charles Seife
Format: MP3

The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. Now it threatens the foundations of modern physics. For centuries the power of zero savored of the demonic; once harnessed, it became the most important tool in mathematics. For zero, infinity’s twin, is not like other numbers. It is both nothing and everything.
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.
Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The seemingly impossible Zen task–writing a book about nothing–has a loophole: people have been chatting, learning, and even fighting about nothing for millennia. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, by noted science writer Charles Seife, starts with the story of a modern battleship stopped dead in the water by a loose zero, then rewinds back to several hundred years BCE. Some empty-headed genius improved the traditional Eastern counting methods immeasurably by adding zero as a placeholder, which allowed the genesis of our still-used decimal system. It’s all been uphill from there, but Seife is enthusiastic about his subject; his synthesis of math, history, and anthropology seduces the reader into a new fascination with the most troubling number.
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 –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In a lively and literate first book, science journalist Seife takes readers on a historical, mathematical and scientific journey from the infinitesimal to the infinite. With clever devices such as humorously titled and subtitled chapters numbered from zero to infinity, Seife keeps the tone as light as his subject matter is deep. By book’s end, no reader will dispute Seife’s claim that zero is among the most fertile–and therefore most dangerous–ideas that humanity has devised. Equally powerful and dangerous is its inseparable counterpart, infinity, for both it and zero invoke to many the divine power that created an infinite universe from the void. The power of zero lies in such a contradiction, and civilization has struggled with it, alternatively seeking to ban and to embrace zero and infinity. The clash has led to holy wars and persecutions, philosophical disputes and profound scientific discoveries. In addition to offering fascinating historical perspectives, Seife’s prose provides readers who struggled through math and science courses a clear window for seeing both the powerful techniques of calculus and the conundrums of modern physics: general relativity, quantum mechanics and their marriage in string theory. In doing so, Seife, this entertaining and enlightening book reveals one of the roots of humanity’s deepest uncertainties and greatest insights. BOMC selection. (Feb.)Most Helpful Customer Reviews

188 of 206 people found the following review helpful
Good, but I prefer another on the subject of zero
By Alleyne on June 16, 2000
Format: Hardcover
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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Creation Date:	Sun, 25 May 2014 03:02:55 -0400
This is a Multifile Torrent
ZERO CH 00 - Null And Void–THE BIOGRAPHY OF A DANGEROUS IDEA —- VERY GOOD .mp3 840.01 KBs
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ZERO CH 01 - Nothing Doing, The Origin Of Zero.mp3 7.67 MBs
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ZERO CH 03 - Nothing Ventured Nothing Gained, Zero Goes East.mp3 6.61 MBs
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ZERO CH 05 - Infinite Zeros And Infidel Mathematicians, Zero And The Scientific Revolution.mp3 9.69 MBs
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Comment:	Updated by AudioBook Bay
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