I will try to answer that question, but lets first understand what blog meains. For starters (myself included), lets understand what blog stands for. As per Mr. Wiki, "The term "blog" is a contraction of "Web log." "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. " In other terms, blog is an online diary. A diary which u are willing to share with billions of internet users. Unlike ur diary, which u keep open only so that u can express whatever u can't express in person [;)] .
So, whats so special about the title for this blog, other than looking like an cheap adaption of Ken Follet's "Code to Zero"?
Is it a tribute to Aryabhatta's magic number? To some extent yes. I could not help wonder about the unique properties of this magic number.
For some people, India's contribution to mathematics is zero and only zero. But it is not so. If you go into the details for works of Indian mathematicians from 4th-11th centuries, you will come to know, that they had worked different branches of mathematics like algebra, trigonometry, calculus and quadratic equations. Our European counterparts could come to terms with these branches a millenium later.
Why is it still the most significant contribution of Indians to the world? Well, its not another numeral in 10 numerals, it is the numeral which gives rise the concept to the position number system. To think of that, if it were not for the positional number system, you would be still working Roman with XXLVs or some number system where 2 and 20 would be distinguished by context of thier use. I guess all the hackers and crackers of the world would have simply loved that!
Coming back to zero. What's so special in this otherwise insignificant looking number?
Zero is written the same way, in almost all the languages which have a concept of decimal or place-value number system. So, in a way zero unifies all lingual representations of place-value system.
Anything added to zero remains the same. However, owing to its power in place value system adding zeros at the end of any number makes it grow exponentially. To get things in prespective, u really need just 10 0s to be richest man in the world [;)]!
Anything multiplied with 0 becomes 0. Whats the use of that? Well u could defeat Australia by putting thier team in a bracket and multiplying it with zero (other methods had proved decidely ineffective untill now.)!
Absolute zero is the lowest possible temperature, occurring when no heat energy remains in a substance. Even though it is not possible to achieve absolute zero artificially, at very low temperatures in the vicinity of absolute zero, matter exhibits many unusual properties including superconductivity, superfluidity, and Bose-Einstein condensation.
Zero also happens to be programmers worst nightmare. It can take forms ranging from "divide by zero error" to "null pointer exceptions".
So, lets blog to zero....
So, whats so special about the title for this blog, other than looking like an cheap adaption of Ken Follet's "Code to Zero"?
Is it a tribute to Aryabhatta's magic number? To some extent yes. I could not help wonder about the unique properties of this magic number.
For some people, India's contribution to mathematics is zero and only zero. But it is not so. If you go into the details for works of Indian mathematicians from 4th-11th centuries, you will come to know, that they had worked different branches of mathematics like algebra, trigonometry, calculus and quadratic equations. Our European counterparts could come to terms with these branches a millenium later.
Why is it still the most significant contribution of Indians to the world? Well, its not another numeral in 10 numerals, it is the numeral which gives rise the concept to the position number system. To think of that, if it were not for the positional number system, you would be still working Roman with XXLVs or some number system where 2 and 20 would be distinguished by context of thier use. I guess all the hackers and crackers of the world would have simply loved that!
Coming back to zero. What's so special in this otherwise insignificant looking number?
Zero is written the same way, in almost all the languages which have a concept of decimal or place-value number system. So, in a way zero unifies all lingual representations of place-value system.
Anything added to zero remains the same. However, owing to its power in place value system adding zeros at the end of any number makes it grow exponentially. To get things in prespective, u really need just 10 0s to be richest man in the world [;)]!
Anything multiplied with 0 becomes 0. Whats the use of that? Well u could defeat Australia by putting thier team in a bracket and multiplying it with zero (other methods had proved decidely ineffective untill now.)!
Absolute zero is the lowest possible temperature, occurring when no heat energy remains in a substance. Even though it is not possible to achieve absolute zero artificially, at very low temperatures in the vicinity of absolute zero, matter exhibits many unusual properties including superconductivity, superfluidity, and Bose-Einstein condensation.
Zero also happens to be programmers worst nightmare. It can take forms ranging from "divide by zero error" to "null pointer exceptions".
So, lets blog to zero....
4 comments:
Indeed zero is the most powerful number and a numerical digit. Dividing by zero...allows you to prove, mathematically, anything in the universe. In the world of Chemistry, Zero has been proposed as the atomic number of the theoretical element tetraneutron. So, lets blog to zero....
It was great to read this post because people around me often call me zero but your blog will be an enlightenment for them, as the significance of us (read zero) is more than anything [:P].. [:D]
It is good to see that you have started bloging but i coulnot get the relation between zero and your blog.. May be i am dumb to get the real essence and need a chat session with you for enlightenment[:)]
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