Our BetterMost Community > The Polling Place
Is zero a number?
David In Indy:
--- Quote from: dot-matrix on July 30, 2007, 10:11:54 pm ---I would NEVER bite your head off David ! :( Zero has to be a number to have an assigned value, otherwise it would be an unknown like a or c are in algebraic equations. Therefore it is null until it assumes its "place"...make sense :) ... only when it stands totally alone does zero have no value and then it use ONLY to indicate that.
--- End quote ---
Okay. I think I understand now Dottie.
Zero is NOT a number if it is alone (only zero) but with another number (such as a one) it IS a number. That makes sense. :)
David In Indy:
--- Quote from: injest on July 30, 2007, 10:35:55 pm ---zero is a number.
I remember reading about ancient history and they were talking about how people didnt really start commerce until they were able to grasp the concept of nothing.
that doesn't sound right I know. But you can't say there is one pencil if you don't know that there is the concept that there were zero pencils before.
ARGH...I am not explaining right.
lets say you are a restaurant owner. and you are buying bread. You have to know you had zero before you can add to it. you have to have the concept of nothing.
--- End quote ---
Okay Jess! Don't come in here and confuse me again! :laugh:
Yes. Zero on its own is a CONCEPT. Not a number. If you have ZERO loaves of bread, you have NO loaves of bread. You have nothing. But if you have 9 loves of bread and purchase another loaf, now you have 10 loaves of bread. Zero in this case (10) IS a number, sort of. But nothing is nothing and it cannot be a number. So zero on its own is not a number, but in the case of 10 (or even 100, 1000, 10000... even 1095600) THOSE zeros are numbers.
Am I correct in saying this? I think I am! :D
injest:
all numbers are just concepts.
all words are just concepts. in and of themselves they don't mean anything.
what is 1 for example?
David In Indy:
--- Quote from: injest on July 30, 2007, 11:14:30 pm ---all numbers are just concepts.
all words are just concepts. in and of themselves they don't mean anything.
what is 1 for example?
--- End quote ---
But we can see numbers. If I have two apples in front of me, I can SEE two apples. There they are... one... two..
If I have ONE apple in front of me I can see ONE apple.
If I have ZERO apples in front of me, I see NOTHING because NOTHING is there! See? :)
moremojo:
--- Quote from: David on July 31, 2007, 12:33:40 am ---If I have ZERO apples in front of me, I see NOTHING because NOTHING is there! See? :)
--- End quote ---
Yes, but the concept of no apples is what is pertinent here. Zero apples is as viable a quantity (at least in mathematical terms) as one or more apples.
Like I said, I'm lousy in math, but one of the aspects of mathematics is its delving into the realm of abstraction. Mathematical concepts don't always have to have (or perhaps even can have, sometimes) exact analogies in the workaday world of our everyday lives.
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