Talk:0/Archive 1

Older comments

The comment that modern languages use zero-indexing is somewhat misleading, because it isn't because of technical merits, but because of the popularity of C. It's no problem for the compiler to convert the one-indexing preferred by humans (or indeed most any indexing) to the zero-indexing used in the machine code. However, since C used zero-indexing and became so popular, most programmers are used to it. That's probably the reason it's used in most later languages.

"The year zero does not exist. Instead there is a "zero point" in time between the years [1 B.C.]? and 1."

What?

Yes, I think we should remove this rather obscure interpretation until someone can provided an authoritative justification for it. - MMGB

But it is correct that in our current system of timekeeping, the year following 1 B.C. was 1 C.E., isn't it? --AxelBoldt

Yes. The reasoning about a zero point is incorrect, though. The reason there is no zero year is that, as I'm sure Axel can confirm, zero hadn't been invented yet when this calendar system was made. The way I prefer to think of it is using the same logic as call 19XX "the twentieth century". We are simply in the 2001st year.--BlackGriffen

I'm not sure whether zero had been invented yet, since I don't know when people started to use the BC/CE method of labeling years. Anybody? --AxelBoldt

BCE CE didn't come in to use until the 20th century (might have been used earlier, but it seems to be an invention of political correctness). Let's see:

" The Gregorian calendar is the one commonly used today. It was proposed by Aloysius Lilius, a physician from Naples, and adopted by Pope Gregory XIII in accordance with instructions from the Council of Trent (1545-1563) to correct for errors in the older Julian Calendar. It was decreed by Pope Gregory XIII in a papal bill in February 1582." from http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/7671/gregory.htm

Not really authoratative, but it seems accurate enough. I thought that the calendar had been proposed earlier, in which case there would be no ambiguity. Had the Europeans learned of zero and the arabic number system by then?--BlackGriffen

No, thats the calendar. The system of chronology (the numbering of years) is separate from the calendar. Our current system of chronology dates back to Dionysius Exiguus (or however you spell him), c. 500 CE. Back then, awareness of the number zero was rather lacking, since people used Roman numerals, which lack a symbol for zero. By 1582 CE, by contrast, the number zero was well established (people increasingly used Hindu-Arabic numberals), but as I said, thats the calendar, not the system of chronology. -- SJK

This is not the case. There is no year 0 not because 0 hadn't been invented, but because years are ordinal numbers, not cardinal ones. The year 1 was the first year of the C.E. Year 2 was the second, 1999 was the 1,999th, etc. Year 2 BCE was the second-last year BCE, year 1 was the last, etc.

For support, we may turn to the French Revolutionary Calendar. Did they call their first year 0? Of course not; they called it 1. (Well, I.) And this was well after the invention of 0.

There's no year 0 for the same reason there's no 0th of January or 0th month. Anyway, Cecil Adams of the Straight Dope did a brilliant exposé on the whole mess more than ten years ago - it may be available at [1].- montréalais

The Zeroeth Symphony

I don't want to step on the toes of the learned Wikipedians working on WikiProject Numbers, but I want to bring to their attention a little tidbit on the number zero: while the ordinal zeroeth is rarely used, there is one instance of it in classical music. The composer Anton Bruckner regarded his early Symphony in D minor to be unworthy of including in the canon of his works, and he wrote 'gilt nicht' on the score and a circle with a crossbar, intending it to mean "invalid". But posthumously, this work came about to be known as Symphony No. 0 in D minor, even though it was actually written after Symphony No. 1 in C minor. There's an even earlier Symphony in F minor of Bruckner's that is sometimes called No. 00. Del arte 21:56, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Very interesting. I've added this to zeroth. 4pq1injbok 03:52, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Someone needs to clarify here or in null about the computer defintion of zero as not being "empty" or "void" like null is. In computer terms, if I am not mistaken 0+x=x while null+x=null. Right?

Zero in Mathematics

I don't like the comment that "x/0 is also the definition for infinity". This requires thinking of infinity as a number, which generally isn't done because it makes arithmetic messy (what is 0×∞? what is ∞+∞?) Having said that, ∞ is viewed as a number in the Extended complex plane. In any case it doesn't seem to make sense that this is the "definition" for infinity. There are different definitions for infinity in Mathematics used for different purposes, and each must be defined very carefully.

0 (number) or 0

How does 0 get to re-direct here?? For all other numbers, the numeral without the (number) suffix is for the year. 66.245.87.127 01:04, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I suspect that the redirect was made by someone who thought that there was no year zero, which is true only in the modern Western calendar. Both astronomical years and Hindu years have a year zero. I propose that the current article '0 (year)' be renamed (moved) to '0' so that the unmodified number refers to the year as all other bare numbers do in accordance with the Manual of Style: "A page title that is just a number is always a year." It would still not be an entry in the Wikipedia timeline. Of course, the current redirects as well as the disambiguations at the top of both articles and zero (disambiguation) would be changed accordingly (they are either wrong or somewhat lacking at the moment). Joe Kress 19:03, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)

Distinguishing zero from O

In paper writing one may not distinguish the 0 and O at all, or may add a slash across it in order to show the difference, although this sometimes causes ambiguity in regard to the symbol for the Null Set.

"Null Set" should either be Null set (no capital S for "set") or empty set. I think it should be empty set, considering the information on notation on that page, and the absence of any information on null set. Brianjd

Someone changed the article to say that letter O is more rectangular than digit 0. In the default font used by wikipedia this is not true on my screen. For me digit 0 has straights on four sides and rounded corners, while capital O is more oval shaped. How about your screens? −Woodstone 18:11, 2005 May 28 (UTC)

The only place I can recall seeing "more rectangular" letter Os is on license plates. It seems we have several ways that have been used to distinguish the characters, including "ovalness" (elliptical eccentricity?) "squareness" and slashing. I've also seen fonts where the zero has a dot in the middle. --Yath 23:30, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Paragraph temporarily removed from History section

I have removed the following from the History section (it followed the sentence on Indian mathematicians year 300):

The earliest documented independent use of zero as a numeral is attributed to them. However, though this concept of the zero is documented as a contribution of ancient Indian thought, it is recognizably ludicrous for us to suppose that ancient Egyptian mathematics could have become as advanced as it was (see also Moscow and Rhind Mathematical Papyri and golden ratio [see Corinna Rossi, Architecture and Mathematics in Ancient Egypt, Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 23-56]) without such an idea of "nothingness."

The reason is that I'm unsure what is meant here. "Independent use" suggests (to me) use as a number (as in "zero brothers"), but immediately following that comes as a numeral, i.e. digit (as in "101 brothers", or more likely, "101 cousins"). The sentence preceding this deleted paragraph also seems to deal with the numral zero. The lines on Egyptian mathematics and Papyrus Rhind - a recent addition - seems to deal with the number.

Another thing that is unclear to me is what the golden section's got to do with it.

It would please me if someone could clarify these issues and reinsert the paragraph.--Niels Ø 02:12, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

First sentence in the paragraph stated: "The earliest known decimal digit zero is documented as having been introduced by Indian mathematicians about 300." "Independent use" was interpreted as referring to "use as a decimal place holder." Perhaps the paragraph was intially awkward to begin with. At any rate, referring to Timeline of mathematics and Egyptian mathematics, it is obsurd to believe that nearly 5000 years ago, ancient Egyptians were able to calculate π as 4×(8/9)² (or 3.160493...), with an error of slightly over 0.63 percent, and then suddenly hit an "intellectual wall" and totally stagnate intellectually for nearly 2 millennia afterward (before finally succumbing to the conquests of outside tribal warriors) without ever even contemplating this notion of "nothingness." Golden ratio is another such number including "0" as a decimal place holder. (But also is it certainly fascinating to note an ancient Egyptian knowledge -- many millennia ago -- of this number's existence!) Psychologically and mathematically, are we to really believe that in those 2 millennia no one single Egyptian mathematician ever thought about representing "nothingness" somehow? Speaking in the Science of Psychology now, History records only a few hundred years requisite for ancient Greek mathematicians to progress to some notion of "zero" concurrent with their ideological development of similar mathematical ideas. If it took the Greeks only a few hundred years, why would it take Egypt several millennia, facing the fact that the Greeks studied mathematics in Egypt? Please refer to the following quote:

"...there must have been much more to Egyptian mathematics. We know that Thales, Pythagoras and others visited Egypt to study. If there were only applied arithmetic methods as we have seen in the papyri, the trip would have had little value. But where are the records of achievement? Very likely, the mathematics extant was absorbed into the body of Greek mathematics -- in an age where new and better works completely displaced the old, and in this case the old works written in hieroglypics. Additionally, the Alexandrian library, one place where ancient Egyptian mathematical works may have been preserved, was destroyed by about 400 CE." [2]

Some historians believe that our ancient Roman ancestors destroyed more than just ancient Egyptian civilization and society, not to mention totally obliterating their peoples from the face of the Earth (but yes, was it the Romans? or Persians? or Greeks? or the Arabs in the end? or ...? We cannot point fingers here, because we have no definite knowledge). Some historians believe that our ancient ancestors plundered specialized knowledge of ancient Egypt and conspired to publicly declare those ideas (to us, their children) as their own. Note, for example, the Great Pyramid of Giza. Please read the article on that page. Why are we so confounded in this modern day for an explanation as to how it might have been feasibly constructed? Some are saying advanced engineering while others are claiming advanced alchemy!!! Note also the Suez Canal. Why would the ancient Egyptians dig such a monumental canal over 3000 years ago if they didn't possess a need to pass thru? -- 209.150.67.45

The principle error made by 209.150.67.45 is the assumption that the ancient Egyptians used decimal fractions — they did not. They always used proper fractions like 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 1/4, 2/5, etc. and their sums. For example, 8/9 would have been represented as 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/18. See Ancient Egyptian Numbers (210KB). In the first example provided by 209.150.67.45, 4×(8/9)² (or 3.160493...) from Egyptian mathematics, the decimal fraction is the modern equivalent of 4×(8/9)², it was not used by the ancient Egyptians. The second example, Golden ratio, as its name implies, was a ratio or a proper fraction — the decimal fraction is only provided for our understanding.

However, I do not doubt that the ancient Egyptians understood 'nothingness', as I think all languages include such a concept. That is a principle problem with virtually all histories of numbers, and particularly the history of zero — they only discuss its symbolic representation, like 0, totally ignoring the word zero. Hence we have the totally false notion that the concept of zero was unknown in Western Europe before its symbol was introduced in the twelfth century. — Joe Kress 21:17, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

[Please] do not break up another user's comments. It belittles their words. You may reword your response accordingly. And please sign your posts. See Wikipedia:Talk page — Joe Kress 10:45, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, the assumption is yours. You may not accurately state, for example, that the Egyptians never put dots of red ink on their noses just because we don't have any paintings showing this. There is insufficient evidence [and too few documents surviving] to back your statements.

For example, for all we know the ancient Egyptian priests may have hidden knowledge from their general population (and the rest of the world). [This is the common argument invoked today to explain ancient Egypt's monumental pyramid constructs and other achievements. No other theory works.] As a matter of fact, by the logic you seem to be using in your statements, you must conclude this to be true, because otherwise we would have documents today to expose our ignorance and eliminate all modern confusion surrounding the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Suez Canal. Nevertheless, this argument about "usage" is irrelevant, as the next several statements show.

[Referring to pi,] we know that the ancient Egyptians had knowledge of this number. Whether they used it or not, we may not accurately say. [However they certainly did use it in the design of the Great Pyramid of Giza!!] We do not know! There is insufficient documentation to accurately support your statements. However, as you can plainly see, pi is 3 + (fractional elements). Knowledge is power. If we know that they knew about these improper fractional elements, we cannot say they never used them. After all, we are talking about several millennia ago. None of us was around to verify.  :)

[Referring to the golden ratio,] same statement similar to above. And... it is absolutely amazing that they knew about it and used it in the design of their structures (as Rossi found they did in over 55 ancient structures analyzed)!!!

[Referring to Joe's final paragraph in the above arguments...] Agreement! Documentation shows that the symbol was introduced in the twelfth century. We cannot say that the ancient Egyptians did not have a similar or identical symbol just because we don't know about it from the few documents surviving. Please see Alphabet. There you will learn that History is being rewritten as we speak. If you open a 2004 Merriam-Webster Dictionary [3], for example, you will find a history of the Latin Alphabet very much different from what is posted in Wikipedia, because their history written in 2004 is limited to what is recorded in surviving documents, and it is now obviously blatantly incorrect!

In other words, in the above statements you are limiting yourself to what you see. You are not imagining possibilities. When one society conquers another, like criminals taking over a victim's home, what do you think might happen? We must use our imaginations to get a better picture.

But from the few remnants we have, they seem to have been far more advanced than has been commonly speculated. Unfortunately, they are no longer here to tell us. [--209.150.67.45]

/* Joe is correct about "belittling." I have revised the above statements for clarity. Some interesting arguments here! Thank you Joe and 209.150.67.45!! --Roylee

Perhaps you fella's might be interested in this fascinating reference, written by The Rev. Paul Barton, Ph.D. (Additional Reading: [4].):

"The earliest people in the Americas were people of the Negritic African race, who entered the Americas ... [for the 2nd time] about thirty thousand years ago in a worldwide maritime undertaking that included journeys from the then wet and lake filled Sahara towards the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, and from West Africa across the Atlantic Ocean.... Some of the ships used during the ancient times, perhaps earlier than 7000 B.C. (which is the date given for cave paintings of the drawings and paintings of boats in the now dried up Sahara desert) are similar to ships used in parts of Africa today. These ships were either made of papyrus or planks lashed with rope, or hollowed out tree trunks. These ancient vessels .. not only ... criss-cross[ed] the Atlantic but they traded out in the Pacific and settled there as well all the way to California.... It has been proven through linguistic studies, religious similarities, racial similarities between the Afro-Olmecs and West Africans, as well as the use of the same language and writing script, that the Afro-Olmecs came from the Mende-Speaking region of West Africa, which once included the Sahara. Sailing and shipbuilding in the Sahara is over twenty thousand years old. In fact, cave and wall paintings of ancient ships were displayed in National Geographic Magazine some years ago. Such ships which carried sails and masts, were among the vessels that swept across the water filled Sahara in prehistoric times.

.  .  .  .

In fact, there is evidence from ancient East Indian chronicles ... of the geat scientific advancement of the Black prehistoric inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization (6000 b.c. to 1700 b.c), who built flying machines, who had flushing toilets, cities on a gridlike pattern, and many of what we may call "modern" conviniences [sic]. About 20,000 years ago, the present-day dried up and desertified Sahara had an aquatic civilization where the Africans who lived on the edges of the giant inland sea, built large ocean-going ships. [5] -- Happy reading!! Roylee

To top all this off ... fella's ... ancient Egyptians had knowledge of decimal systems as early as 3100 BC!! See [6]. Do we really need two or three thousand years to pass by before fractional elements may enter into such a system??? Do you suppose ancient Egyptians knew about it ... but we have no record??? -- Roylee

Please remember, Wikipedia is not the place for idle speculation. References to a Reverend so-and-so's highly unusual theories is not valid substantiation for anything. At most, it may be presented somewhere in the Wikipedia as an intersting theory. But let's focus on established historical facts - and let's focus on the subject matter here - ZERO (the digit and the number) - please--Niels Ø 08:22, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)!

Cleanin gup, merging

0 (number), 0 (disambiguation), and Zero (disambiguation) need to be cleaned up. I'm moving everything to the number, and not the spelled-out english title; and moving dab content to its own page away from the number/numeral article. +sj + 20:25, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

computers consider zero to be positive

It appears that computers consider zero to be positive. This is because the most common representation of numbers is the 2-complement, so a negative number always starts with the bit 1. Since zero starts with a bit 0 it is considered a posistive number.

No, this is not true. In two's complement, a "0" sign bit only indicates that the number is not negative. (With floating-point numbers (namely IEEE 754), there is both a positive and negative zero.) --Doradus 13:35, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Some computers have both negative and positive zero. See one's complement. --A D Monroe III 20:31, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Most CPUs have a special "all zero" attached, which makes the point of whether or not it is even moot. It's more important in computer science that it is a cruial asymmetry to the ABS()_function (other lesser repercussions are not as interesting. Early Java gave us a Math.abs() function, but since the range of say a byte is -128 to 127, the implementation has no good choice when presented with Math.abs( (byte)(-128) ). If one anticipates this issue, brava... but there are a half-dozen primitives to remember that this is an issue.

I have a serious grievance with the statement that zero "may or may not be" a natural number, particularly the smug assertion that if you think zero is not a natural number you are not a mathematician.

Repent for your tone when you couple it with falsifiable content.

I read the guidelines, but this ignorance must be eradicated like rats or pigeons; it's mathematical vermin.

Investigate the issue on Wolfram's site, and read 4 books written before the 70s on the topic.

Wolfram will set you straight.

The Natural Numbers are a non-terminating series that begin at 1 (ONE) and whose next elementa is 1 greater than the previous. In the domain of natural numbers, division by zero is ungrammatical because THERE IS NO ZERO, THERE IS NOT EVEN NULL, only no remainder during division. It is NOY a valid Natural Number--that's why there's blanks and out-of-band .

The Romans did many great things, but they did nothing with the advances of the Greeks, consequently Merriam-Webster shows--from day one--a blank space in the Roman Numeral table. It's clear from the history that educated people of that time were limited to a single word, which to most meant Nothing/Void/Out Of Bane in a universal sense rather than a value that causes exceptional attention to the changes in the governing rules.

Then our Indian friends push through, give it a glyph--once that is accepted, mathematics is free from empiricism--and the rules governing the operators change due to DbZ. As one moves from one mathematical "calculs" to the next

Wolfram's approach to

Integers follow in the western world, but they're for bookish accountsl.0 Then we get integers, with negative numbers, but in software the problem/proficiency the register constrictions in and bytes and range/ , but I coden to

Similar complications arise S be t,Read a goddamn book. The history of mathmetatics is p This issue then infects all numeriimitive —Preceding unsigned comment added by KlangenFarben (talk • contribs) 07:21, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Just curious...

...Is there any issue over whether or not zero is considered a number, at least, in the same way one and two would be? I was always wondering this. >.> -- A Link to the Past 09:02, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

In the past, zero was not considered a number - the article discusses the development of the concept at some length. However, it has been considered a true number for a long time, longer than negative or imaginary numbers. Zack 22:29, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

aught??

I'm sorry, but when and where was zero called "aught"? Surely, this should read "naught or nought", while "aught" is the precise opposite of zero, meaning "something"? 83.78.191.122 13:23, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Another paragraph removed from the history section

I have removed this paragraph from the history section.

The zero was invented by inhabitants of India around the sixth century CE. The earliest zero on record, an inscription of Zero on Sankheda Copper Plate was found in Gujarat, India (585-586 CE). In Brahma-Phuta-Siddhanta of Brahmagupta (7th century CE), the zero is lucidly explained and was rendered into Arabic books around 770 CE. From these it was carried to Europe in the 8th century. However, the concept of zero is referred to as Shunya in the early Sanskrit texts of the 4th century BCE and clearly explained in Pingala’s Sutra of the 2nd century.

The part about Brahmagupta is redundant with existing discussion under "First use of the number", and the other part (the Sankheda copper plate, Pingala's Sutra, etc.) is unsourced. This text seems to have been lifted almost verbatim from a Hindu evangelical website which I do not find credible; all Google hits are either also copied from that site, or are Wikipedia mirrors. I'd be happy to see mention of the copper plate and Pingala's Sutra return to the article if accompanied by a credible source citation. It should also be corrected so as not to contradict the discussion of Mayan and Babylonian mathematics.

Zack 17:54, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Zero in the Middle Ages

I've added to this section to make clear that zero was in common use from the thirteenth century for calculation. Also, mentioned the modern myth about the church banning zero as this comes up from time to time. --James Hannam 17:53, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Is it even?

Is zero even? Why? I guess, the answer also should be included in the entry. --rydel 14:12, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes it is, for the same reason that all other even numbers are even (0/2 = 0, an integer). Please do feel free to wedge that into the article somehow - right now I don't see a good place. Zack 19:53, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I second that, could it please be put into the article somewhere as soon as somewhere reasonable is found. Cheers, darkliight 04:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure zero is even. Any number taking on the form 2n is even, n = ...-2,-1,0,1,2,... for n=0 we have 2n=0. Thus zero is even.

Well... Zero is even at the mathematic point of view, not in the pratic... if you divide the zero in two parts you won't have a pair of "fractions of the nothing", but the zero...

Then, seeing the etimology of the word odd in portuguese (ímpar), it results in two terms:

Ím (ausence) + par (pair)...

Since you can't have a pair of nothings, zero can be considered odd in the pratic view of the mathematics (in the theory it is even...). (PS: I am a student of mathematics from Brazil) 200.153.221.40 01:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, you can divide the empty set into two equal parts, both of which are empty. To put it another way, an empty set is the disjoint union of two empty sets (which are all the same set, but that's aside from the point). Likewise, you can put an involution on the empty set without any fixed points (the empty function), and partition it into pairs (the empty partition), and relate its elements into pairs (the empty relation). These concrete realizations of the evenness of zero sometimes have practical applications.

I plan to write a new article on the evenness of zero, simple though the subject is. It may ultimately be merged here, or into Even number, or there might be a joint summary style structure. Melchoir 21:01, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Stone in Saqqara pyramid?

In Fred Schuh's book, The Master Book of Mathematical Recreations, §§251-254, is mentioned a step-pyramid type puzzle involving multiples of 7.

§254 references a stone apparently found in Saqqara and created by Imhotep (Fig. 122); I am not sure if a scan of the stone would be allowable here, but the gist of it is that this stone has glyphs that appear to be numbers - decimal numbers even, including the 0 in its modern digital sense. It doesn't appear that these glyphs make any sort of sense except as being taken as numbers, either.

Has anyone else seen this stone? It's clear that it's significant in the history of the 0, but I have not been able to find any other references to Dr. Kirederf (despite him being supposedly "the well known Egyptologist" according to Mr Schuh), Eugaheht, the Saqqara stone or similar other than the book itself - I am not sure if this tale is true or apocryphal.

Amarande 23:24, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

1/0 = ?

shouldn't 1/0 equals infinity? Let me elaborate: 1/1 = 1; 1/0.5 = 2; 1/0.25= 4; 1/0.125=8; 1/0.0625= 16 ; ... ; 1/0=inf ?

• In a way that makes sense, but we normally think of division as belonging to the field of real numbers, to which infinity doesn't belong. Check out appropriate pages at the Math Forum. Georgia guy 22:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

• But 1/-1 = -1, 1/-0.5 = -2, etc, too. Then 1/0 must also by inference be -infinity, as well.

This attempt at inclusion opens a very large and destructive can of worms on traditional mathematics. Once we try to accept infinity as a number ... besides the fact that now we have a division with two results - which in itself contradicts the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra (a division is really the means of solving the trivial polynomial ax = b, with degree 1, and thus must have exactly one root per FToA with no exceptions), we have other unravelments -

For instance, in a similar vein then -

1/2 = 0.5, 1/4 = 0.25, 1/8 = 0.125, 1/16 = 0.0625 ; ... ; 1/inf = 0

But it's clear that any real divided by infinity is zero by this progression:

3/2 = 1.5, 3/4 = 0.75, 3/8 = 0.375 etc.

Or, more bluntly, we can write the series as 3(1/2), 3(1/4), 3(1/8) etc., and similar for other reals other than 1. In other words the basic point is what applies for dividing 1 by increasingly large denominators into infinity applies for all other reals as well. (OTOH I am not entirely sure of the interactions between infinity and complex numbers ...)

So now we've established that (any)/inf = 0.

But remember that dividing solves ax = b, which means that if b/a = x, then necessarily ax = b, also.

Which means that 0 * infinity = n, for all real n.

I'm pretty sure though that there's also a theorem guaranteeing that the product of any two constants is also a constant ...

Oops.

No, I don't think attempting to accept infinity as a number and thus defining x/0 is going to sit well in the mathematical stomach.

Amarande 04:02, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

• Mathematicians are, however, happy to consider the matter geometrically. If we

consider the real numbers to be a line, then adding an extra point 1/0, the point at infinity, is one way of constructing the real projective line. Topologically it gives us the one point compactification of the real numbers. Gene Ward Smith 08:53, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Bhaskara II had a similar view. See Division by zero. deeptrivia (talk) 04:45, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

You might want to tell this to the folks over at the Infinity page, because under the mathematics section, there's a big equation that says X/infinity = 0... The Disco King 04:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

In a paragraph preceding that equation, you can read this:

Infinity is not a real number but may be considered part of the extended real number line, in which arithmetic operations involving infinity may be performed. In this system, infinity has the following arithmetic properties:

If you want to write anything like 1/0=infinity, it must be preceded by a similar phrase to explain the context. More precisely, it would need to be the one-point compactification discussed in the Infinity article. But really, I do not think this article should get into that kind of complications.--Niels Ø 09:49, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Logical definition

I've included Russell's famous definition of zero to supplement the current explanation ("For example, if the number of one's brothers is zero, then that person has no brothers. If the difference between the number of pieces in two piles is zero, it means the two piles have an equal number of pieces.") Not only does the logical definition introduce rigour but the original definition is circular. Mikkerpikker 15:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Nonstandard analysis

I've removed the following sentence, which is at best highly misleading, from the article:

• In nonstandard analysis the number zero is taken as an infinitesimal element of a non-principal ultrafilter.

In any hyperreal field, zero is smaller in absolute value than any positive number, and so is trivially an infinitesimal. However, normally by an infinitesimal, we explicitly mean to exclude zero. For instance if dx and dy are infinitestimals, we can take the ratio dx/dy only if dy is not zero. Gene Ward Smith 01:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Irrelevant additions

Does anyone agree with me that the following additions are infinitely extendable and have no relevance to the article?

• In trigonometry, sin 0 = 0, tan 0 = 0, arcsin 0 = 0, and arctan 0 = 0.
• Zero is one of three possible return values of the Möbius function. Passed an integer x2 or x2y, the Möbius function returns zero.
• Zero is the first Perrin number.

−Woodstone 22:29, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

The first and third seem silly, so I'll delete them. The Möbius function bit isn't so bad, since it has a bit of content, but if someone deletes it too, I'll still sleep at night. Melchoir 03:45, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you know the Perrin sequence? 3, 0, 2, 3, 2, 5, 5, 7, 10, 12, 17, 22, 29, 39... Anton Mravcek 16:21, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

So what? There are an infinity of sequences (and functions) that have a zero somewhere. The fact that 0 is in the sequence may say something about the sequence, but does not tell us anything about zero. The line does not belong in this article. −Woodstone 17:18, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. The OEIS suggests about 80000 known candidates. Melchoir 18:51, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Dell and zero

Ok, a bit off topic, remove this if it is in the way. Just wanted to mention that the zero fell off my keyboard and when I phoned Dell to have it fixed, the guy who answered did not know what a zero was, I used the article 0 (number) to explain. I don't think English was his first language. Once he realized what I meant said Ohhh, that is what a zero is, I know that number. HighInBC 23:14, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Pingala, etc.

These references need a bit more research (and don't seem relevant if they are similar to Morse code, a ternary system)? The Pingala article also seems quite clear that this has little to do with zero, so perhaps we should clean this up? mfc 15:53, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "clean this up". Even if this means deleting it, I have no basic objection except to note that it will probably be added again by an Indian proponent. I have another objection to the following sentence, that he used sunya, void, to mean zero. That is not noteworthy because as far as I know, all languages have a word for nothing, and it is obvious to me that when applied to anything that is normally counted, like sheep or goats, can be translated as zero. In my opinion, the concept of zero has always been known, only a special symbol for it was a late arrival. — Joe Kress 22:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The way I undertood it was that Sunya-which translated to void-was the name given for that symbol in Indian math, where its role as a placeholder was first developed. But that's just what I think.

--Sakredfire 07:42, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The Law and Zero

Perhaps a section on Law and the number zero should be included. Example: Our apartment building was to have a bylaw stating that there can be no rental suites but the lawyers said that zero is not a number and so we had to make it "1" instead of "0". There may be other cases like this. Comments?

topher67

Grammar of zero

Perhaps this could be expanded upon, is zero singular or plural, e.g., there are zero comments but not *there is zero comment. Why is that? CoolGuy 03:47, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

In grammar many languages differentiate between one and "not one" - usually referred to as "plural". Zero is usually not considered identical to one and so "plural" is used when referring to zero. So, there are zero students in the class until one student came in. Be aware that indo-european languages originally had three forms, "singular", "dual" and "plural". This is where words like "both" comes from, we say "all three" but we say "both" rather than "all two". Again, the "plural" doesn't necessarily mean "plural" but rather "neither singular or dual" or "anything other than the aforementioned forms". As such it is a "bag case" or "miscallaneous" case that cover "anything that doesn't fit into the other" cases. Modern english and other indo-european languages have generally dropped the dual and only keep "singular" and "plural" where "plural" means "not one" rather than actual "plural", i.e. it also covers zero.

Of course, in ancient times they did not consider zero to be a number in its own right and so they would probably not use plural to cover zero. They would never say "there are zero students in the class", rather they would say "there are no students in the class". How this was reflected in the grammar they used at ancient times I don't know, however, you can then argue that "plural" in the latter form makes sense because there are neither 1 nor 2 students in the class, there are none and so a plural form comes natural as an "without reference to a specific count" as the "no students" do not refer to a specific count in the mind of the ancients as they did not consider zero to be a number or count.

salte 14:01, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

wikipedial medieval zero

See Talk:Number

Proposal: split off 0 (numeral) or 0 (digit)

This article is getting a bit long (36 KB), and it deals with both the number zero (the abstract concept of nothing, which is so useful in math) and the numeral/digit 0 (a little symbol that looks like an ellipse and should not be confused with O, although it's often pronounced "oh"). The two topics are mixed in together in a confusing way. It seems that there is enough material on the latter (typography, etc.) to split it off into its own article. Comments? Joshua Davis 00:15, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Distinguishing zero from nothing

I would propose to leave out the confusing "As a number zero means nothing — an absence of other values". Alhough 'adding the number zero' has the same effect as 'adding nothing', in principle we have to distinguish between the concept 'number zero' and the concept 'nothing'. That distinction is no meaningless distinction, because 'adding nothing' is, contrary to 'adding the number zero', the refraining from any action. It implies that the number zero is not identical with ‘nothing’ ('nothing' is only nothing, and so it cannot be a number at all). Although ‘zero apples’ boils down to ‘nothing’, the number zero does not. The so-called medieval zero is no real zero at all (see the discussion about wikipedic medieval zero (Talk:Number 28). Jan Z 15:17, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Zeroes or Zeros?

I notice some inconsistency in the spelling of the plural form of 'Zero'. What is the correct spelling?

Both spellings are correct, but you are expected to choose one of both. Here it's mixed as you noted. I have not found the exact difference (like -se or -ze for verbs like realise, .. : people assume it's a UK/US difference, while it's a within-UK difference historically). --82.35.101.136 11:47, 16 April 2007 (UTC)Marvin D. Martian

The zeros/zeroes discrepancy keeps me up at night, as Wikipedia articles (and any other document, for that matter) should have standardized spelling. Both the American Heritage Dictionary (US) and the Cambridge University Dictionary (UK) ambiguously list the plural of zero as "zeros" or "zeroes," so it is not a UK/US difference (as far as I can tell). Unfortunately, I can find no other evidence, historically or didactically, that should indicate what spelling is proper. I was born, raised, and learned grammar in Tennessee, and have always spelled it zeroes. I am interested to see what other users have traditionally used. At some point, I think it would be prudent to choose one over the other. Derekpblank 00:53, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

The Concise Oxford Dictionary only gives 'zeros' as the plural of the noun. The -es form is used for the verb (as in "it zeroes in on the target"). Webster gives 'zeros' as the plural (with 'also zeroes'). Charles Seifre, in his book Zero – The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, uses 'zeros'. On the other hand, Robert Kaplan (The Nothing That Is – A Natural History of Zero) uses 'zeroes'. Other writers avoid the problem by only using 'zero' in the singular Google reports 'zeros' about three times as common as 'zeroes'.

Net: it seems rather arbitrary, and perhaps regional. It looks as though 'zeros' is the most common -- and it has the advantages of parsimony and avoiding any confusion with the verb form. mfc 11:17, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

History of Zero

I think the two history sections need to be combined. Also, there is some disagreement about whether Long Count examples were found outside the Maya homeland. Whether yes or no, we need a cite to back up whichever version of the story is presented. Cbdorsett 06:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The entries under History do not discuss zero used alone, as those under History of zero do, hence they must remain distinct in some manner, although I don't know what would be the appropriate sub-heading for the first sub-section. — Joe Kress 07:51, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

digits and zero in various languages.

I removed the translations, as they don't belong in here, maybe they should be in wiktionary.

A few additional examples follow.

• Arabic: Sifr
• Catalan: xifra, cypher, amount; desxifrar, to decode; zero, zero
• Czech/Slovak: cifra, digit; šifra, cypher
• Danish: ciffer, digit
• Dutch: cijfer, digit
• French: zéro, zero
• German: Ziffer, digit, figure, numeral, cypher
• Italian: cifra, digit, numeral, cypher; zero, zero
• Malay: sifar
• Norwegian: siffer, digit, numeral, cypher; null, zero
• Persian: Sefr
• Polish: cyfra, digit; szyfrować, to encrypt; zero, zero
• Portuguese: cifra, figure, numeral, cypher, code; zero, zero
• Russian: цифра (tsifra), digit, numeral; шифр (shifr) cypher, code
• Slovenian: cifra, digit
• Spanish: cifra, figure, numeral, cypher, code; cero, zero
• Swedish: siffra, numeral, sum, digit; chiffer, cypher
• Serbian: shifra, cypher, figure, numeral
• Turkish: Sıfır
• Urdu: Sifer, Zero

bogdan 13:40, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

How many digits does 0 have?

I cannot find a source that tells how many digits 0 has. I suppose people assume it has one because it is represented by one digit (0), but I have a few arguments that say it doesn't have one digit

• There are 9000 numbers with four digits, 900 with three, 90 with two, and ... 10 with 1
• The first number with four digtits over the first number with three is ten, three digits/two digits=10, two digits/one digits= ... infinity (or undefined)
• The logarithim of the first number with four digits is 3,three 2, two 1,one ... -infinity

Does anyone have a definite answer, or an idea for an argument, on how many digits 0 has?

Indeed123 21:21, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

It's often a special case in digit-counting, but the most consistent value is zero. In n digits, you can encode 10ⁿ values, from 0 through 10ⁿ-1 The number of digits in x is the least integer n such that x ≤ 10ⁿ-1, or x ≤ 10ⁿ. For x=0, this works out to n=1.

This matches the extreme case of "delete leading zeros", and is often used in bignum implementations.

71.41.210.146 16:34, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

In other fields?

The in other fields article is rather trivial. Should we consider removing it?--Cronholm144 22:41, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Quotations section should be moved to WikiQuote

I'm not sure how to do it. Also, it is causing formatting issues.--0rrAvenger 15:41, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Rules of Brahmagupta

The rules of Brahmagupta are very important, but I think they are in the wrong place. His ideas about zero should certainly stay, but the others I'm just going to move to the page on the book. If anyone disagrees, please move it back. Indeed123 15:01, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Rectification

on the article about zero, the para saying that hindus invented the zeroes by thhemselves has been removed. It is true that the mayans have used it..but the hindus took no greek or chinese etc. "help" in creating it..It would not be an exaggeration to say that all middleage(i.e., when the muslims came), European mathematics was exclusively obtained from India carried and edited or refined forward by the arabs. Evidence of High indian maths is not available as the moslem conquerers destroyed most hindu texts, libraries after stealing the knowledge, plunging a superior nation into the dark ages.Even arab scholars like al-beruni were against the destructive attitudes of the conquerers, and for inctance, severely censured mahmud of ghazni for destroying such an advanced culture... Also, plenty of chinese maths was influenced by buddhist missionaries who went there and hindu prisoners of war

Hieroglyphics?

I have removed the sentence "It means "courageous one" in hieroglyphics." from the article pending some sort of contextual explanation. Speciate 20:26, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

No divisors?

I thought all intergers divided zero (actually, I'm pretty sure they do). Why does it say "N/A" in "divisors"? Shouldn't it say "all numbers"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.199.119.74 (talk) 04:52, August 27, 2007 (UTC)

Comparing this table with that appearing on other number pages shows that divisors lists numbers that will divide the article's number (here 0) evenly, without leaving a remainder. In other words, it lists the results of factorization. One requirement of factorization is that the given number is the product of the factors, which must also be divisors. This would exclude 0 itself because it cannot divide itself. A better term to use in the table would be factors. — Joe Kress 20:40, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. The infobox already has a field named "factorization" where the reader should expect to find the results of factorization. In the next field, named "divisors", the reader should expect to find the divisors of 0, full stop. Placing N/A in this field suggests that 0 does not have any divisors or that the concept of an integer dividing 0 is ill-defined, both of which statements are false.

There is a legitimate question as to whether the statement a|b should be defined when a = 0, and in fact, my abstract algebra text declines to define it in this case. Even if one does define it, it makes a difference whether the definition is "b/a is an integer" or "na=b has a solution". In the case of 0|0, the former statement is either false or again ill-defined, while the latter statement is true. So one could, as a matter of convention, write either "all integers" or "all nonzero integers". Either one could be cited with a quick trip to Google books.

To save us the headache, I'll just write "all numbers", which should be sufficiently vague to avoid controversy. Melchoir 02:22, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

history of zero

history is not chronological, it would be more understandable if it was. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.212.234.91 (talk) 23:16, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

request to remove "both"

I request that we consider removing "both" from the first sentence in the lead paragraph. What do you think? --Kushal^t 22:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I think we should attempt to reach uniformity for the first sentences of the 10 articles 0 (number) through 9 (number).

There is a kind of category confusion; properly speaking, we ought to distinguish between "0 (number)", "0 (digit)" "0 (glyph)" and "zero (name)". There is a number, usually represented by "3", but the same number can be represented by "11" in the binary system, or the Roman numeral "III", and also by "003" or "3.0" in the decimal system. However, a simple "3" is the "normalized" decimal representation. Because of the way the decimal system works, and because 0 ≤ 3 < 10, we use a single digit to represent that number. That digit is not a number, but a (one-character) symbol used for representing numbers. (Aside. This is similar to the distinction between the word "I" – the first-person singular pronoun, as opposed to the second-person "you" and the plural "we" – and the capital letter "I", lodged in alphabetical order between "H" and "J" and having "i" for its lower case. If certain reformers of the English spelling had had their way, we might be writing "Ie" for the pronoun.) To put that symbol for the digit on paper, or on a computer screen, we use a single character for the symbol "3"; that character has a shape, called a glyph. To talk about the number, we use a name, which is "three". We use the same name for the digit and the character/glyph. In other languages, the name is different: drei, trois, etcetera, even if the number is the same. In some other cultures, the glyph is also different: ٣, or ৩, or ௩ (see Hindu-Arabic numeral system), even though the mapping from number to sequence-of-digits is the same. Strictly speaking, in different typefaces the glyph is different: 3 versus 3.

Therefore, I'd prefer to seee something along the lines of:

3 (three) is a number, the natural number following 2 and preceding 4. In the decimal system it is represented by a single digit "3". The word "three" is used as the name of both the number and the digit.

This is easily generalized to all single-digit numbers, with only 0 having no natural predecessor; instead we can state that it is the smallest natural number.

I see no reason to say that 0 is a glyph. Our article Q simply states that Q is a letter; it does not say that Q is a glyph. It does not even mention the term "glyph". If the article discusses glyphs (some have a section on the evolution), we can simply use the first time "the glyph for the digit D", where D is the appropriate symbol, and use "the glyph" in the remainder.

 --Lambiam 02:38, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Verification needed

In the History of zero section, I added the following paragraph based on Sangi o koeta otoko by Wáng Qīngxiáng and The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art:

In China, counting rods were used for calculation since the 4th century BCE and Chinese mathematicians understood negative numbers and zero, though they had no symbol for the latter. The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, which was mainly composed in the 1st century CE, stated "(when subtraction) subtract same signed numbers, add different signed numbers, subtract a positive number from no-entry (zero) to make a negative number, and subtract a negative number from no-entry to make a positive number."

After that, Arthur Rubin added "veryfy source" tags. Could someone please remove the tags? I shouldn't do it myself, although I'm sure about the meaning of the paragraph above. The original line is as follows:

正負術曰: 同名相除，異名相益，正無入負之，負無入正之。 (wikisource)

Here 無入 literally means no entry and actually means zero. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 00:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we can use wikisource as a "source", unless it's a reprint with a reference to the original source. In any cases, do the sources actually assert that the zero was used c. the 4th century BCE (or, to be precise, on a date which maps to that date using modern date references)? — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you doubt Wikisource? If so, I can provide several sources on the web:

• http://www.chiculture.net/0803/html/c62/0803c62.html
• http://chinese.dsturgeon.net/text.pl?node=51662&if=en
• http://edu.stuccess.com/knowcenter/Science/general/history/mathhistory/oldmath/00000007.htm
• http://www.6jc.cn/guji/Article/8719_8730.html

The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art is a well-known book in ancient China. You can also find books on it. We can only say with the current sources that zero was used in China in the 1st century CE. I can hardly imagine they didn't use zero while using negative numbers, but I don't have a source for zero in China in the 4th century BCE. Anyway, someone who can read Chinese or Japanese other than me should edit the article. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 02:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Of course I doubt Wikisource. Doesn't everyone? Wikisource and Wikitionary can be used as related subjects, but not as sources. I think it might be best if someone other than yourself should remove the tags, as you point out, but I think they may very well be accurate. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 02:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Just for clarification, I cited the original text of The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art from Wikisource, not the claim that ancient Chinese used zero. The rule itself proves the use of zero, though. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 00:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't read Chinese. I assume that the occurrence of "(zero)" in the translation is an editorial insert, meant to clarify the preceding "no entry". Can we be sure that this is not a novel interpretation? Is it absolutely clear in the context that "no entry" stands for a number? The meaning of the whole passage is rather obscure; I hope this was not a textbook meant for self-study.  --Lambiam 09:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, zero is the standard translation by mathematical historians. The no-entry is my editorial replacement to clarify the original word 無入, which is not used today. The modern Mandarin word for zero is 零 (líng), which originally meant a small remainder, not zero. This change suggests mathematicians understood zero but laypeople didn't. Quite similarly, in English, you can say oh, naught, nil, etc. instead of zero. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 00:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

P.S. You write: "based on Sangi o koeta otoko by Wáng Qīngxiáng". In what sense is this based on that source? Is it a paraphrasing of information from that source, and can it be considered a reliable source? The title is Japanese but the author's name is Chinese; is this a translation of a Chinese original?  --Lambiam 10:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It's a reliable book. Here's a link to Amazon Japan: [7] It's written in Japanese by a Chinese mathematical historian, who became a Japanese national in 2000. He got a Ph.D. in science at the University of Tokyo and is a professor at the University of Yokkaichi now. Is that enough? I used the book to show the translation of the rules of zero of The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art. Classical Chinese is so different from Mandarin it's not good to cite only the original text. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 01:03, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

So, do I understand the following correctly:

1. The information "Chinese mathematicians understood negative numbers and zero" is not your interpretation of the text from The Nine Chapters, but paraphrases the interpretation given by Wáng Qīngxiáng.
2. The quoted passage from The Nine Chapters is a translation into English of a Japanese translation of the Classical Chinese original, where the Japanese translation can be found in "Sangi" o koeta otoko.
3. However, you have replaced "zero" (零?) in the Japanese translation by "no entry (zero)" to make the translation more literal.

If that is the case, I think you should write just "zero" (and not "no entry"), and use only "Sangi" o koeta otoko as a reference. Even better is if you can cite a published English-language translation, such as:

Shen Kangshen, John N. Crossley, Anthony W. -C. Lun (editors). The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art: Companion and Commentary. Oxford University Press, USA (1999). ISBN 978-0198539360.

I don't have access to a library, so I can't check that source myself.  --Lambiam 19:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Correct. I can understand the original text, though. I believe it's good to have a link to and a citation from The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art on Wikisource, because it's easily accessed by everyone. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 00:53, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I've made an edit to the article that, hopefully, everyone finds satisfactory.  --Lambiam 13:25, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 22:50, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

In computer science : the index size convenience point

I think there's something lacking in the "In computer science" section in the advantages of 0 indexing. One of them is indexing. Let's say you're on a very simple 8-bit architecture, and that you're trying to allocate/have access to an array containing 256 elements.

With 0 indexing, you can use indexes from 0x00 to 0xFF (255) to access all your array elements. But with 1 indexing, you would have to use indexes from 0x01 to 0x100 (256)! That takes an index with more than the necessary 8 bits. That's quite a problem, as these type of situations happen quite frequently, depending on the kind of programming you do. --62.147.133.191 (talk) 19:03, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

You are undoubtedly right. Do you happen to know a reliable source that mentions this issue, so that we can include this in a verifiable way in the article?  --Lambiam 21:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

No. But we can do it like we always do, add that to the article, and have a "citation needed" thing. Someone will eventually bother with finding a citation. --62.147.133.191 (talk) 07:35, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

You don't need an extra byte to store an index for a 256-element array, regardless of the first index. If it starts at 1, just store the index - 1. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 09:52, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Indian Contribution

I think the history section needs to be started off with wordings which sound something like this. "The origin and history of zero can be traced back to the Hindu/Indian civilization." The article in its current form supports this statement. Why always a western bias in the scientific history and origin of everythingSrinivasanram1 (talk) 17:34, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The Hindu/Indian zero was the first decimal zero. All instances before that were for non-decimal zeros—sexagesimal, vigesimal, Roman numeral, etc. — Joe Kress (talk) 08:12, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The Indian zero was the first decimal non-blank zero. Chinese have been strictly decimal from the beginning and they wrote arithmetic rules on zero and negative numbers in the 1st century CE, but their zero was a blank. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 14:47, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

"Eurocentric" was the word I was looking for.Srinivasanram1 (talk) 04:59, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

If anything this article needs to be more "Mexicentric". While, yes, the earliest long count calendar to specifically have a zero dates from 36 BC, the earliest examples of the long count calendar itself, which requires the 0 to work, goes back many centuries before that, before the Indian or any other version of 0. --86.148.57.131 (talk) 17:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the earliest Long Count of any kind is that of 36 BCE (7.16.3.2.13), which did not use a zero. Indeed, none of the earliest Long Counts (36 BCE–162 CE) use zero according to Mesoamerican Long Count calendar#Origin of the Long Count calendar. When written in bar-dot form without glyphs the Long Count requires a zero to work. However, a Long Count written with glyphs that name the units (baktuns, katuns, etc.) does not need a zero, even though they were usually written with a glyph that meant zero when a the Long Count contained a zero. Thus the article must be reworded so that it does not support the misconception that the earliest Long Counts used a zero unit. Nevertheless, the earliest Long Counts that did use zero are still quite early. — Joe Kress (talk) 08:38, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Spanish version

The Spanish version of this aricle seems to have a different history of zero. Why the difference? Rmhermen (talk) 22:54, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The Spanish version is really weird. According to its Google machine translation, zero originated in the "Belgian Congo, under the Empire Mweangh" possibly as early as 15 AD, but with an earliest certain agreed upon use in 327 AD. But according to early Congolese history, the earliest empire was the Kingdom of the Congo (1400-1914) whose leaders had the title Mwenekongo. This appears to be the source of the garbled Spanish phrase. Furthermore, Congolese oral tradition was not set to writing until the late 16th century. The translation then states that that zero came to Europe through Marroquis, which is Marrakesh, Morocco. This is reasonable for the Arabic version arriving in Europe via the Moors. It says the word zero comes from Swahili fejr (sifuri) via Arabic sikd (ṣifr) via Russian (tzifra) (usual English transliterations in parentheses). Thus the word arrived by a very circuitous route quite different from the concept. But the Swahili word actually came from Arabic, not vice versa. The Russian probably did come from Arabic (via Greek), but was not the source of any Western European form. Somehow the Almajesto (Almagest} was written in 204 AD by Titus Vespucio, instead of about 140 AD by Ptolemy. A possibility for Titus Vespucio is Vespasian, Roman emperor from 69 to 79, whose full name was Titus Flavius Vespasianus. I have no idea what to make of "In 343 AD Zsnewinya creates a number system that was not zero and it was a simple positional system." I can't identify Zsnewinya, and 343 is nowhere near any important date in mathematics of which I am aware. Within the same paragraph two sentences later, Indians are mentioned for the first and only time! — Joe Kress (talk) 06:34, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't take it seriously. It's surely a vandalism by 190.51.158.88 [8]. It'll be reverted. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 09:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I was more than a bit suspicious of the Belgian Congo bit. I reverted it - it is just a shame that the vandalism there got edited for links and grammar several times with no one noticing the content change. Of course, I have seen it happen in English as well. Now if I could only remember why I was trying to read the article in Spanish?? Rmhermen (talk) 17:52, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Divisors

The article states that "all numbers" are divisors of zero, however, this is not strictly true as it can't be divided by itself as division by zero is undefined. Maybe this should be changed.RMFan1 (talk) 12:53, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Formally, 0 divides 0, as 0 × 0 = 0, even though 0 / 0 is undefined. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 13:33, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Does any1 ever think that maybe we need better definitions? all of this zero talk is getting nowhere. How can it divide itself if the result is undefined? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amyx231 (talk • contribs) 01:34, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

History

The following text contributed by 61.95.202.59 is moved here because virtually all of its facts are already in the article, and the opinions are not supported by citations. — Joe Kress (talk) 05:55, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I did a quick search and found the text was a copy from A history of Zero. I think we need to delete the versions that contain it. (see the section below - 00:44, 27 February 2008 (UTC)) Please try searching on the net if you find a long text without links in a single edit. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 23:12, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a mind boggling article! I find the history really hard to get my head around. But why are there two history sections, one following the other? Perhaps part of my boggling could be reduced if the History section was consolidated into one. For me, it would also help if it was then expanded, to include some more help to conceptualise how old worlds functioned WITHOUT a zero, and how the need for it evolved. LookingGlass (talk) 06:54, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

There is one section entitled "History", which has three subsections:

1. "History of zero",
2. "Rules of Brahmagupta", and
3. "Zero as a decimal digit".

I think it might be clearer if there were just two subsections:

1. "History of zero as a decimal digit" and
2. "History of zero as a number".

These are quite independent concepts. One can have a notation for a "missing digit" in a place-value system to distinguish "1¤2" (one hundred and two) from "12" (twelve) without having a concept of a next number in the sequence 3, 2, 1, ?. And one can have a concept of such a number, and possibly a notation for it, without having a digit 0 – in fact, without having a place-value system with digits.  --Lambiam 19:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Copyright violation

Resolved

As I have written above, the article of the versions 2008-02-25T07:20:35 through 2008-02-25T21:59:38 and the talk page of the 2008-02-26T05:55:57 version violate the copyright. They should be deleted from the revision history. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 00:44, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Copyright problems, we don't need to delete old versions that violate copyrights, and reverting the article is enough. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 02:40, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Perrin numbers

The article says "Zero is the first Perrin number." Is it really? Sure, it's P(1), but P(0) is 3. So it depends on whether you call P(0) the first (since there are none before it) or the zeroth. In any case I'm not sure whether this fact is interesting enough to put here. It seems to be just the ordinary whole number zero, so is it really an 'extended' use of zero? I had never heard of Perrin numbers before and I only skimmed the article, so I can't really judge.--Angelastic (talk) 15:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

Invented in India? Sounds suss to me... Lady Raven. 12:43, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, INVENTED IN INDIA BY HINDUS! Also, so were the entire NUMERAL SYSTEM, DECIMAL SYSTEM, BINARY SYSTEM, PHILOSOPHY, LANGUAGE, RELIGION, LINGUISTICS etc.; ALL WERE INVENTED IN INDIA! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.39.64 (talk) 20:54, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

And what is wrong with something invented in India? 131.227.210.149 (talk) 11:34, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds 'suss'? I wonder how narrow minded some people could be. It also proves the level of their general knowledge.  S3000  ☎ 11:40, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

ZERO SYMBOL

so if u would like like to wrote zero, like for example on ur e-mail addredd, you should write a zero with a slash across it? would a diagonal slash from the top right hand corner to the bottom left hand corner wr wrong? thx 72.229.222.147 (talk) 18:03, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Origin of the concept of zero?

From my understanding the concept of zero has been concieved in many parts of the world, the earliest reference from the Dogon Tribe of Mali (west Africa).

They used a mark made from the thumb meaning "dead" or "from dead" in context it meant was "nothing".

The Dogons version of the zero was later adopted by various middle eastern countries, and this is when the thumb print was changed to the symbol we know today (0), this symbol is still representative of the thumb print, it was just easier to write.

The term "Dead on" (on point) also has relations with the "Dogon zero"

With all the knowledgeable minds out there, I am dissapionted that the Dogons don't even get a mention on the relavent Wikipedia page.

Usually I find Wikipedia to be a reliable impartial source of information, but I find that "giving credit where credit is due", or more accurately, not giving credit to Sub-Saharan Africa for some of the development of human intelligence is common, and on many subjects.

This has inspired me to register with Wikipedia just write this.

Mankind is an intelligent creation, beyond time, beyond space, and historical text.

There have been intelligent minds in Africa from even before the dawn of civilisation (European standard), it's not such a far stretch to think that most mankinds inventions occured in the worlds oldest continent, then modified, improved upon, or even invented again by someone else, some place else (like the 12 volt batteries found in Egypt).

The only reason why I am not updating the page myself is because I do not know the exact dates concerned, just that they are the earliest known.

Anyone reading this please do your own research and update the page before I do. Thankyou.

G.Logic Godlogic (talk) 16:16, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

On a related topic, the orginal belief that the Dogon knew of Sirius B has been refuted by a later researcher in Dogon#Dogon and Sirius. I have never heard of their knowledge of zero, nor is it mentioned in the Dogon article, nor are there any hits for it using Google. It sounds like fringe science which requires some mention in a reputable journal for inclusion here. Furthermore, the extraordinary claim that a Dogon thumbprint influenced the shape of the Indian/Western Arabic/European symbol for zero requires extraordinary proof, including proof that the Dogon were using that 'symbol' over 1500 years ago when the Indians adopted a circular symbol for zero and that some sort of trade existed between the Dogon and the Indians for that influence to be transmitted. — Joe Kress (talk) 23:12, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

zeros or zeroes?

Just noticed that "zeros" and "zeroes" are used interchangably throughout this article as the plural of zero. Either is correct, but one should be used consistantly. 217.36.223.10 (talk) 11:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

If you feel that strongly about it, edit it and correct it. Just make sure to explain your edit in the edit summary (e.g., "I changed as "zeros" to "zeroes" for consistency"). Anton Mravcek (talk) 22:43, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Numbering from 1 or 0?

Non-programmers actually already count from 0 with realizing it. When counting, guess what people use as the first digit for tens, hundreds, thousands, etc.? Hint: it is not 1. So it is very inconsistent to use 1 as the first unit. This inconsistency is why years starting with 19... are the 20th century: we are just missing the 0th century. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.77.176.130 (talk) 09:26, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

NULL pointers in C

The C99 standard defines a "null pointer constant" as an integer constant expression with the value zero (optionally cast to a void *) (6.3.2.3-3) and NULL as "an implementation-defined null pointer constant" (7.1.7-3) which means that in all cases, (NULL==0) is true. As per 6.2.6.1-1, the internal representation of any non-integer type is undefined, not just the internal representation of pointers, so sating that "[a NULL pointer] has no particular association with zero" is incorrect since a NULL pointer when cast to an integer is zero and a zero cast to a pointer is the NULL pointer. --Real Deuce (talk) 22:29, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

My mistake. A null pointer is equal to 0. C89 doesn't specify it has the value 0, but it's probably close enough. As most of the C compilers I work on claim to be implementations of C89 rather than of C99, I haven't studied the C99 specs. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:45, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps all true, but irrelevant since the article is not about C. −woodstone (talk) 05:13, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I would tend to agree that the whole set of null sections should be removed since this is an article about zero, not null and is not zero (even though NULL==0 :-). ---Real Deuce (talk) 22:15, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Factorization in infobox

The factorization section of the infobox looks horrible, because of course 0 isn't really factorisable. Is there a way to make the infobox look better? —Goodtimber (walk/talk) 01:56, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Combining usage of BCE/CE and BC/AD

This article mixes the usage of BCE/CE and BC/AD. Are there standards in place for mixing one and the other? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.182.223.201 (talk) 22:25, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The relevant section in WP's Manual of Style states that either can be used, but should be consistent within an article. I have edited the article appropriately. AJCham2097 (talk) 00:56, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Why can't I edit?

I want to add zilch to the beginning. Here's my source: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/zilch. But it won't let me edit this page. Joey Skywalker (talk) 23:28, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

It is in there, you may wish to put a link from the Zilch disambiguation page. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:16, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah I can edit it now. But I don't know how to do that Joey Skywalker (talk) 06:43, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It is actually there as the first item, I guess I did not look properly. You have probably been set back slightly by the semi-protection, waiting for you to be around for a bit first! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:48, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Remove Semi-Protection

I think this article should have it's semi protection removed as it seems to not be target of largescale vandalism. The only mention of vandelism on this page is incorrect. Any thoughts? --AresAndEnyo (talk) 19:23, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

There has been plenty of vandalism, perhaps not largescale, but the reason it has stopped is that semi-protection. Certainly it should be protected against page moves. If an unlogged in person wants a change they can ask on this page. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:40, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

This page was last open to IP editing between 27 October and 1 December. It might be worth looking at the article history during that period to see if there was one single beneficial edit from an IP. (I did not notice any, though I did not look at every edit). Occasionally an IP will revert their own vandalism. The essay, Wikipedia:Rough guide to semi-protection, indicates that semiprotection should be considered whenever vandalism constitutes more than 5% of all edits to the article. That criterion was clearly met during the month of November. It was also evident that the majority of vandalism came from IPs during that period. EdJohnston (talk) 21:53, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Having a quick look over it there does seem to be some attempts by ip users at helpful edits, even if these were misguided and then reverted. I would say that vandalism constituted maybe about 10% of edits or something like that. I think we should try taking of vandalism as it may have just been under attack for that month. Is it an indef semi-protection?--AresAndEnyo (talk) 10:40, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

The page log shows that protection will expire on 1 March. When that occurs, we can wait a few days to see if all the IP vandalism comes back, before deciding if protection should be restored. I would describe this as a 'classic vandalism target,' but I could yet be proved wrong, if the vandals don't return. EdJohnston (talk) 18:24, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers

Zero is the cardinal number of the empty set, but zero is not an ordinal number.

"not an ordinal"... Unless you are a C programmer.  :-). 71.199.121.113 (talk) 16:10, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Cardinal numbers are: zero, one, two, and so on, identifying the number of elements in sets: The empty set contains zero elements. Cardinal numbers are nonnegative integers.

Ordinal numbers are: first, second, third, and so on, identifying individual elements: Element number one is the first, element number two is the second and so on. No element has number zero. Ordinal numbers are positive integers.

The year numbers are ordinal numbers. The first year is year number one. The 2009'th year is year number 2009. So there is no year number zero. The different years do only approximately have the same duration.

A point of time is identified by time coordinate which is the duration since some zero point of time. A time coordinate is a real number.

Bo Jacoby (talk) 08:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC).

Perhaps I can provide a different perspective. We have 10 digits 0-9. For some reason we want to consider 0 to be a different kind of digit than 1-9 even though this causes various anomalies. Let us take a look at considering the digits 0-9 to be similar. In that case the cardinal number zero corresponds to the ordinal number zeroth and the cardinal number 1 corresponds to the ordinal number first etc. Now consider a car odometer. The beginning mile is 0 or the zeroth mile because we have not yet completed a mile. At the completion of a mile we are at mile 1 or the first mile. The same holds for a person. At birth one is 0 years old and in their zeroth year. At their birthday one is 1 year old and in their first year. Like everything in mathematics one must be very careful how they define things to produce a consist system. If this had been done with the calender starting with year 0, decade 0, century 0 and millennium 0 then 2009 would be the ninth year of the zeroth decade of the 20th century or the zeroth century of the second millennium and one would have a completely consistent system. Perhaps the article could describe things as they are stating the problems and showing how they could be fixed. 24.18.222.126 (talk) 21:32, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

See East Asian age reckoning for a different take on peoples' age. Dmcq (talk) 21:51, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Very interesting. However, I would have to view it as another example of inconsistency. What I am trying to get at is building a consistent system will bring out properties of zero which are not obvious otherwise. Perhaps I picked a poor example. 24.18.222.126 (talk) 22:58, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

ZERO NUMBER SANS DOGMA

Tradition can be wrong, and any description of a Zero specially in Wikepedia must mention that the rational mathematical parity to the null zero, is -1 or inverse zero, an inverse dot-inverse angle versus a dot of null zero. Remember in Platos time tradition had the "earth flat". For reference only such a inverse zero exists and is fully mathematically/rationally defined as a full reference only at www.inverse19mathematics.com. Wikipedia which is the Bible for truth in Science etc, must give a "slight open door" to a full definition , because such things may take a hundred years to be contested, as they are now being contested openly.--Vinoo Cameron (talk) 18:06, 1 August 2009 (UTC)--Vinoo Cameron (talk) 18:06, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is no bible of truth and that is expressly not its purpose. Please see WP:NOTE, only things that people have shown interest in by writing books about it or otherwise signalled great interest is put in. Truth is only important in reporting what is said, if everyone said pi was 22/7 and there was just some peoples own original research showing it was something else then only 22/7 would be reported. If you want to upset the status quo you can't do it by wikipedia, it only reports what people already accept. Dmcq (talk) 19:23, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

== SANS DOGMAS==Response Wikipedia articles must always present the facts AS THEY ARE, without dressing up the dogmas.Do not say that for instance the "Circle is not squarable, "impossible" (why not say that it has been considered impossible by some)AND because that has been done recently and put out for open review for all the world to see at www.inverse19mathematics.com , it is verifiable openly to the whole world to see--what more verification you need , Gods? .For that very reason it has been refused by the discoverers to send it to "dogmatic scientific journals" lemma this or lemma this, they cannot control Wikipedia ! because of the attitude of relying on Gospel truths that are not so is dangerous , the same thing has kept Einsteins ancient ideas in the limelight even though there has not been any thing new. As for Zero This is a good article, but the whole presentation sugests at least to this reader that Zero is = Mathematics and that it is a resolved fact. It is not so and cannot be because it has not been proved anywhere that I know . All I had asked in the interest of science was to leave the door open a "crack" to suggest that Zero is by no means Gospel truth, even though it is accepted generally . REMEMBER when Einstein who was not God made a statement that "God does not play dice" , most accepted it as gospel truth, even though it made no sense BUT it took one fellow Neil Bohr to dispel the Dogma of the God by simply asking " How does Einstein know God?--Vinoo Cameron (talk) 23:07, 1 August 2009 (UTC) --Vinoo Cameron (talk) 22:58, 1 August 2009 (UTC)--Vinoo Cameron (talk) 22:58, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

This is not a forum. It is a talk page for discussing improving the article. That does not include original research. An individual web site discussing the owner's research is counted as original research. It really does not matter as far as wikipedia is concerned whether what you say is true or not. Dmcq (talk) 23:13, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Zero as a Decimal

"The first known use of special glyphs for the decimal digits that includes the indubitable appearance of a symbol for the digit zero, a small circle, appears on a stone inscription found at the Chaturbhuja Temple at Gwalior in India, dated 876 CE. There are many documents on copper plates, with the same small o in them, dated back as far as the sixth century CE, but their authenticity may be doubted."

The above quote is challenged by the Khmer numerals article, which pushes back the certain use of zero as a numerical figure two centuries before that of the Chaturbhuja Temple: "[The Khmer Script] is the script with the first extant material evidence of zero as a numerical figure, dating its use back to the seventh century, two centuries before its certain use in India." The authenticity of the claim has so far been withheld and published in a number of studies, and like the Chaturbhuja one, it also occurs as an epigraphical inscription. - Io Katai (talk) 00:46, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

The One

The number O is also known as the symbolic sphere O. It's use historically gave a different perspective to problem solving as the symbol represented "The One". Inclusive of this is all natures language that is represented by the concept of duality. The sphere would divide as it does in birth making all life a part of the original "One". The mathematical shift occurred around 800AD when the integer of lineal placement holder replaced the ancient symbol of O. According to Robert Lawlor, 'Sacred Geometry", this was the most devastating event in history to science and philosophical thought. The current explanations for the symbol O do not include it's philosophical meaning. This meaning is nature's law. (----) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Carolgregor (talk • contribs) 02:52, 1 September 2009

No source given, and it's mathematically and philosphically implausible. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:41, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Nought Nil and Null

Should we point out that it is commonly called that in the UK More than USA? 72.165.115.67 (talk) 16:33, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

That's probably something that would be more appropriately addressed in this article: Names for the number 0 in English. - Io Katai (talk) 01:45, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

two al-Khwarizmis, apparent mistake

The section Names begins with: "In 976 Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, in his Keys of the Sciences..." However, this Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was already dead even 100 years before. Maybe the other al-Khwarizmi, i.e. Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Khwārizmī, is the right one: he is the author of Keys of the Sciences, although he was an encyclopedist (and not a mathematician like Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi), so why should he write about "0"? It looks a bit complicated, but I hope somebody around here knows the truth. See also Al-Khwārizmī (disambiguation) Duddek (talk) 02:05, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Organization of number pages and number disambiguation pages

Dear Colleagues,

There is an ongoing discussion on the organization of number pages and number disambiguation pages.

Your comments would be much appreciated!! Please see and participate in:

• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Numbers#Organization_of_number_pages

Thank you for your participation!

Cheers,

PolarYukon (talk) 15:30, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Discrepancy in dates for Khwārizm mention of zero

Assuming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Musa_al-Khwarizmi lived from 780-850, he could not have mentioned zero in 976. That line should be removed or corrected. ValSaul (talk) 15:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

jesus birth

should there be something on jesus birth? i hve heard some historians say jesus was born in the year 0 Iwanttoeditthissh (talk) 07:31, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Probably not, for two three reasons:

1. It should be in Year 0, rather than in 0 (number).
2. Actually, the original concept was that Jesus was born in 1 BC.
3. And, historians (who believe Jesus to be historical) now place the birth of Jesus at 7 BC to 4 BC.

— Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:35, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Historians include year 0

In fact, no historians include a year 0. I don't know why we may include it as a possibility. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:55, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

• Accusing me of edit warring is ridiculous, I am not blindly reverting any edits, and am not 'reverting' back to the same edit or even one with the same meaning, my last edit was explicitly a compromise taking into account your objection. The fact is there is no authoritive method prescribed in any disipline other than in astronomy, i.e. within ISO 8601. If you have information from an authoritive sources to say otherwise feel free to include them as citations. Otherwise you're left with trying to prove a negative.121.74.8.48 (talk) 03:26, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Oh I see, you unjustly accuse me of edit warring, but happily edit the page with the explicit goal of having it reverted back to your preferred version without any discussion, this is a clear attempt to side-step the policy and violate it. I don't have to provide an example of an historian using the year zero, to justify the statement that they may include it, you have to provide evidence that they may not.121.74.8.48 (talk) 03:36, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
    • Coasterlover1994, you do not revert any other editor's comments as 'irrelevant', especially when they most certainly are not.121.74.8.48 (talk) 03:42, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

• Ignoring your comment to Coasterlover1994, all 3 of your edits sequences add the (false) implication that some historians do use the year 0. I believe that would be considered to constitute 2 reverts, even if the same wording weren't used, just as my edits constitute 3 reverts, even though, in one of them, I didn't precisely revert. If someone else used "some" before, you would have 3 reverts. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:54, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

My first edit, isn't a revert by definition of being the first, the third edit made no such claim and was explicitly a compromise as per the edit summary, and for that matter was no different in implication than the original wording. Though I disagree with the claim that no historian does or ever has utilised a year zero, it doesn't need to be justified for the statement that they may or may not, to be correct. Whereas the positive statement that they may not/cannot would need evidence to support it, which is the implication of the apparent flat statement of fact now present in the article. Present the authoritive source that defines the correct method for historians if not. Otherwise you are attempting to prove a negative.121.74.8.48 (talk) 04:21, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Interesting debate, this seems like it might be relevant; "The missing-year-0 BC(E) convention, as well as the 1-to-12-am-pm notation, are wonderful examples for obsolete, inelegant and dangerously fault-prone conventions. Responsible computer folks should stand up against these and tell the world clearly and with force that in no way can these ever be the recommended, proper, responsible ways of doing things. Do not fear the zero! There is a year 0 CE and a year -1 CE, just like there is a time 00:00. Any older notational work-around should have been abandoned after the zero became popular in Europe sometimes in the 1600s." ~Markus Kuhn.

Well known for his work on international standardization, and also for specifically championing the ISO 8601 international standard date and time notational system (use of which is not limited to astronomers as suggested above). ISO 8601 uses the Gregorian calendar and a proleptic Gregorian calendar.121.73.221.187 (talk) 07:40, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I think it is even less likely now for historians to include a year 0 in the normal scheme afer Year Zero (political notion). I might as well try and replace pi with a 3 legged version for 2pi in maths (for which I have seen a proposal). Plus ISO 8601 is not a international standard for early dates, only recent ones. Dmcq (talk) 08:31, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Astronomers do not use ISO 8601, although their dating method is similar. Astronomers do use a year zero between negative and positive years, but they use the Julian calendar before 1582, not the Gregorian calendar. Futhermore, astronomers do use the date order year-month-day, but months are spelled out or abbreviated to three letters. Maya historians used to use a year zero, specifying that the Long Count epoch was 3113 BC.[Linda Schele, The proceedings of the Maya hieroglyphic workshop (Austin, Texas, 1992) page 173.] But Maya astrologers specify 3114 BC, which is correct for no year zero. Some Maya historians may still use a year zero. No other historians use a year zero, so "most historians" is better than "some". — Joe Kress (talk) 19:44, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

As the above is an example of historians who do use a year zero the article as it stands is inaccurate. 'Most' is certainly better than a flat statement with the implication that it may not be used, and is to my ears more neutral than the previous wording 'almost all'. It is merely that year zero is not generally used in an area of a specific specialized field of study, that it may not isn't an inherent part or function of the Gregorian calendar, or rather a proleptic Gregorian calendar, which is merely a projection back of that calendar and not part of that calendar system as it was devised.

In fact, defining rules of the Gregorian calendar make projecting a proleptic Gregorian calendar without a year zero problematic as per the algorithm for determining leap years for example. It is flawed as noted by this Markus Kuhn in the above quote. Steel, cited in the current version, may be an historian but he does not represent an authoritative body within that discipline with the power to define the calendar, and certainly doesn't represent any authoritative body with the power to define it in general, and in fact notes that his statement on the year zero is at odds with Webster's explanation in the book mentioned. Also within historical research dates of events occurring prior to 15 October 1582 use the Julian calendar, a proleptic Gregorian calendar should only be used only with great caution.

ISO 8601 certainly can be used for early dates, at the agreement of the information exchange partners, where a proleptic Gregorian calendar is stipulated by that standard.121.74.8.48 (talk) 21:15, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

According to Google Books, Schele writes: "In the Julian Calendar it's 3113 BC. The reason for that difference is the Julian Calendar has a zero year and the Gregorian Calendar does not." This is an exceptional claim for which I have found no support. Melchoir (talk) 03:28, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Is it up to you to make that discernment here though? She is a published expert in her field.121.74.8.48 (talk) 03:54, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Here is just a talk page. By pointing out its idiosyncrasies, I am suggesting that the Schele reference is not representative of a notable tradition. A reliable secondary source describing such a tradition, of course, would be quite welcome -- and I'm pointing out that I have not found such a source.

By contrast, the article itself falls under the policies of Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. Accordingly, it simply states "There is no year zero in the B.C./A.D. scheme", which can be directly attributed to any number of reliable sources, as I'm sure you're aware. Melchoir (talk) 04:22, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Obviously I mean 'here' in the sense of wikipedia, not the talk page, there's no need to get all italic-y at me. Schele is a reliable and authoritative expert in her field and I mentioned earlier that Steel himself notes that Webster's explanation is at odds with his own as well, and there's also Markus Kuhn as above. The, 'B.C./A.D. scheme', isn't a calendar, it's merely a phrase relating to the use of B.C and A.D., the only citations I can find that even make use of this phrase are directly related to Steel's use or discussing it as opposed to BCE/CE, in a Christian vs. secular context. A proleptic calendar, is not part of that calendar, it is merely a projection of it. In truth there are no dates in the Gregorian calendar before 1582, and any date system anyone cares to project based on the Gregorian calendar, including ones with a year zero, are perfectly valid examples of a proleptic Gregorian calendar by definition. The calendar does not contain this convention as an inherent part or function and that is the implication of the article as it stands, point to a formalised set of authoratative defining rules for the Gregorian or Julian calendar that contains this as an actual part of the structure and/or function of either calendar.121.74.8.48 (talk) 04:59, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Steel is pointing out how the dictionary is misleading, while Kuhn is merely describing why the current system sucks. Melchoir (talk) 06:00, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Steel is asserting the dictionary is misleading, there is a difference, and hardly surprising considering he's making an assertion of his own, contra-wise the implication of Webster's is that he is incorrect. It's not up to us to judge Webster's vs. Steel, what we can ascertain is that they differ, and a definitive statement as to which is correct should not be made by us here. I have to disagree with your interpretation of what Kuhn is saying, his position is fairly overt in the text.121.74.8.48 (talk) 20:18, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

The relevant asymmetry between Steel and Webster is that Steel directly addresses the issue. WP:NOR and WP:V explain how important this asymmetry is. The Kuhn quote says only "should have been abandoned". Anyway, I found the reference: it comes from a mailing list archive.

I'm trying to explain why the sources you've suggested are not enough to state on Wikipedia that some historians include a year 0. Perhaps the ground rules aren't clear. What you need is a reliable source that states that some historians include a year 0. Melchoir (talk) 22:16, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense, Webster's directly addresses the issue by numbering the years. Your selective quote mining of Kuhn ignores the subject of what should have been abandoned "Any older notational work-around" which therefore changes the meaning, and also his flat statements that there is a year zero. A work-around is exactly what this convention represents, there is no authoritative body that has ever formalised or defined it, and no source or evidence to counter that point has been presented.

These two in addition to Schele are reliable sources; Webster's is clearly authoritative in definitional matters. Schele's example is discounted apparently since it doesn't conform to a pre-existing bias. Certainly moving the goal posts from the statement that no historian uses it. It seems any use of year zero by any historian who does use a year zero can be discounted because they're wrong, and they're wrong because they use a year zero; Entirely circular reasoning, and OR that has no place here. What you need is a reliable and authoritative source that states a proleptic calendar can not have a year zero. Stating that it may not, is at odds with the very definition of what a proleptic calendar is. For that matter historians have no authority to define the calendar, they might utilize it, but they don't define it, and it is widely used outside that field of study. The calendar as it was originated has defining properties and a lack of a year zero in any proleptic calendar which is projected from it is not one of them. Unlike, say, the rule for leap years, which is actually at odds with a lack of a year zero, or does 5BC divide evenly by four now? And my objections to the sloppy phrasing 'B.C./A.D. scheme' have been ignored, it not a calendar, or a scheme in that sense, it's merely a way of labeling years within the calendar unrelated to the numbering itself, this terminology has been merely been selectively adopted from Steel's assertion. For that matter, Steel's citation doesn't state that no historian uses a year zero. Which is, as I said, the positive assertion.121.74.8.48 (talk) 00:09, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

(reindent) Very well, I've replaced the "scheme" phrase with this edit. Melchoir (talk) 01:36, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Anno Domini isn't the Gregorian calendar though, it isn't even a calendar for that matter, it is a calendar era. Further, AD is a separate calendar era to BC, dating something else, i.e. years preceding a certain date, it would be more accurate to say that year zero is simply avoided if using the BC calendar era to date years before AD 1. That doesn't mean year 0 doesn't exist, astronomical historians use it for instance, and as stated here, in a discussion Steele himself was a part of, and he himself has put forward;

it is the common use of historians of astronomy to use a system known as Julian Years to give a continuous dating system. In this system, there is a year 0 - it is the year before 1 AD. Hence year 0 = 1 BC, -1 = 2 BC, and so on. For comparing astronomical events in the past, such as the solar eclipse that was total in Babylon on 15 April 136 BC, it is much easier to call this year -135 April 15. For examples of dates of this kind, see the translation of the Babylonian astronomical diaries by Sachs and Hunger, or Sachs’ Late Babylonian Astronomical Texts (LBAT).

That is a pretty clear use of the year zero by historians, and also concurs with the quotation from Schele.

Also the international standard ISO 8601 uses the year zero in its specified proleptic Gregorian calendar. ISO 8601 being an actual authoritatively defined dating system is as valid, if not more so, as a convention which can be used within one field. For that matter a convention which isn't even primarily used with the Gregorian calendar, if dates preceding its inception are usually rendered in the Julian calendar. It cannot be simply said that there is no year zero in our calendar, especially when rules such as the leap year algorithm which are built into it, directly conflict with a lack of the year zero. As stated, there is no rule or function inherent to the calendar which contradicts the existence of a year zero in a proleptic calendar projected from it, and at least one which pretty much explicitly requires it, and that criteria is what has be shown to state categorically that there is not one. It is a linear set, and zero precedes one as surely as two follows it.121.74.8.48 (talk) 21:11, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Note that the the present article does not use the word "Gregorian", or "calendar", or "historians". Melchoir (talk) 01:39, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I am aware of that, it's the very point I started with in my last comment, the use of 'Anno Domini system' is part of the problem, as well as the fact that it's to the exclusion of other relevent terms, and creates the impression of a false dichotomy where the inclusion of a year zero is not possible within the calendar.121.74.8.48 (talk) 02:02, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Please select a single point. Melchoir (talk) 05:00, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean, the point, in the wider sense, is that the implication of the current version as it stands, is that there is no year zero outside of the astronomical system, and that the inclusion of the year zero is not a possibility in the calendar (or rather, a proleptic calendar projected from it). I've presented a number of supporting points toward this.121.74.8.48 (talk) 05:54, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

There are two ideas you might mean by "the inclusion of the year zero": (A) 1 BC < 0 or (B) 1 BC = 0. Which idea are you concerned that the article does not allow as possible? Melchoir (talk) 06:57, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah I see; The latter (B).121.74.8.48 (talk) 21:00, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay. Melchoir (talk) 00:53, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I would propose something more like this;

The BC calendar era numbers the years preceding AD 1 in the Anno Domini calendar era, so 1 BC precedes the year AD 1, avoiding the use of year zero in the latter, by contrast the year zero is used within astronomical year numbering, as well as ISO 8601 an international dating standard, and for systems of historical dating relating to astronomical events in history. 1 BC equates to the year 0 from these systems, the year 2 BC equates to −1 and so on.121.74.8.48 (talk) 03:03, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. Instead of detailing why I disagree, forcing you to defend your proposal, let's take a look at the big picture. The present text is the result of a series of compromises, in the positive sense. It strikes a balance between clarity and nuance, a balance between the spirit of the cited source and the need to avoid misconceptions. You should feel proud of your contribution to the improvement of the article. I sincerely thank you! Take this opportunity to declare victory, smile, and walk away. Melchoir (talk) 03:56, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Aw man -But we're so close though! :) I'm not saying I'm not willing to compromise, or that I'm unhappy with the progress of the present version, actually just had another look and am very happy with your last edit, but I am sincerely interested in what you object to in the proposal. In terms of the content if not the wording.121.74.8.48 (talk) 05:26, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's pedantic and repetitive. A sane reader doesn't care whether AD and BC are one calendar era or two calendar eras. Then "astronomical year numbering" and "systems of historical dating relating to astronomical events in history" are the same thing. And ISO 8601 is just another application of the same convention, padded to four digits. Its existence isn't an excuse to turn the discussion into some kind of popularity contest. Melchoir (talk) 06:04, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I said, in terms of content not wording, it was only an example, I know it needs some tidying up. I would argue any sane reader wouldn't see a difference between AD dates and their equivalent dates in Astronomical 'numbering', as they are exactly the same, in general nobody even uses 'AD' to date the year it is any more for that matter, so there really is no difference. This is an encyclopedia, so I'm not sure simply relating the facts correctly could be considered pedantic, the difference in dating lies in the use of the BC calendar era not the Anno Domini era. Dating historical events is not the same use as astronomical numbering used within Astronomy, look at the example above where they are using it to date historical events, by Sachs and Hunger; they're historians using the dating system for dating of historical events that have been recorded and dated in ancient times as happening relating to astronomical events. Saying that this, and ISO 8601 are just other examples of the same convention misses the point that the assertion is about where and when the convention is used, the assertion at the moment presents a dichotomy with the implication that year zero cannot be used outside of some calculations made within astronomy. That ISO 8601 is rendered with four digits is neither here nor there, it's about what the date is that is being counted, American dates are the same as the ones recorded in the UK, despite being rendered using a different system. I honestly have no idea what you might mean by popularity contest.121.74.8.48 (talk) 20:55, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I want to do the right thing, but I can't work with you anymore. If anyone else shares 121.74's concerns, please speak up. Otherwise I will conclude that the consensus supports the status quo. Melchoir (talk) 06:37, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

You can't conclude some sort of invisible consensus, based on a mere negative example, I might as well say there's a consensus that the arguments I've forwarded can't be countered, I've not been unreasonable or been impolite as your tone would seem to suggest. Likewise describing your edits as a 'status quo' when they're less than two weeks old seems misleading. Especially when false accusations of edit warring were used to prevent me being able to edit the article, but those on the other side felt free to edit it as much as they wanted to support their preferred version and even request others to edit it when they wanted to avoid the 3RR rule. I'm going to assume good faith, but not continuing the discussion merely indicates you've said what you will to defend your position and wish to leave it at that, not that you've 'won' in some sense by default, this isn't a competition, we're trying to improve the article, to put forward arguments and counter-arguments. Keeping as close to you own wording as possible what's wrong with editing the article to state; "Within the BC calendar era, the year 1 BC dates years before AD 1; no room is reserved for a year zero" at the very least. I still think it's a faulty argument to say the only place year zero is permissible is within astronomical numbering, because everywhere else that uses it is just using the same convention (i.e. numbering years continuously, i.e. using the year zero in other contexts besides astronomical numbering).121.74.8.48 (talk) 21:01, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, no response or argument against the change in text I proposed here, so shall I take it there's no opposition?121.74.8.48 (talk) 22:26, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

You do not have any sort of consensus for the change. Don't do it. Dmcq (talk) 22:43, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

You don't need to create a consensus to make a change in an article... and no consensus against the proposed change in text exists anyway (and for that matter, even if there were, a couple of posters would hardly form much of a consensus anyway. As I said above you can't assume an invisible consensus where none exists based on a negative example). No counter argument or opposition to it has even been presented as I said, so any talk of consensus on the question at hand is irrelevent. I'll keep assuming good faith but all this talk of consensus just comes off as a tactic rather than a valid argument. Do you have an actual reason not to make this minor change in the text, afaics it's more factually correct and is very close to the text already there. Hopefully it shows my good faith that I asked the question here first rather than editing the article. There's a surprising amount of resistance from a couple of editors over a very minor points (and talk of popularity contests seems telling0), creating a barrier, and with false accusations of edit warring leveled at me, but no counter-argument has been presented re the change I proposed above (nor for that matter to my arguments below).121.74.8.48 (talk) 22:58, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

There is a consensus against. Do not edit against the consensus. You have no citations backing up what you say. Dmcq (talk) 23:54, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

This doesn't really constitute an argument, either for there being a consensus against the specific change in question, or against its contents, you're just making an assertion. Obviously as it's only been suggested once and there was no reply, there can have been no consensus either way. And as I said, hopefully my posting here rather than just editing the article demonstrates my good faith. Since the meaning of the change in text is the same, but more specific and clarified, an additional citation is moot. The point of consensus is to reach it through dicussion and good faith arguments, not just a quick count of heads to hold up as some sort of trump card. For that matter, this particular aspect of the discussion has only even been mentioned within the thread of discussion between Melchoir and myself, so hardly any numbers for a majority consensus there even if it had been the specific subject of discussion or singled out for discussion, which it wasn't. 121.74.8.48 (talk) 00:16, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

There has been a discussion. The consensus was clearly against you. Nothing new has been added. If you want to try again with your arguments in a couple of months that is probably okay but I would advise for the moment to Wikipedia:Let it go. Dmcq (talk) 09:28, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

<reindent>You haven't addressed any of my points and simply make the same incorrect assertion again, there clearly hasn't been a consensus against the proposal (not against 'me', sheesh, what was that about popularity contests earlier) it's only been made once, there hasn't even been a reply to it. In fact there hasn't 'been' a discussion, there is a discussion, one you refuse to engage in. The discussion concerns a few distinct points it's not you vs me. Who is this 'consensus'? -You? Well seeing as your only contribution to the actual discussion was in reference to IS0 8601 (and one minor conjecture about historians) and ISO 8601 has nothing to do with the current proposal, nope. Melchoir? Well he's incorporated and agreed with some of my suggestions already (at one point he even sincerely thanked me) and hasn't discussed the current proposal specifically, but it's very close to his own wording and the meaning of his own edit. Joe Kress maybe? oh wait, he actually posted facts that supported my position. Arthur Ruben? Well no again, since he was arguing at the start of the discussion over the point about historians that has already been dealt with. You've failed to show a consensus, or to make an argument on the facts, much like you failed to answer the argument below in regards to ISO 8601 for that matter. If you don't want to have a good faith discussion maybe you should 'wiki:let it go', but simply waving an invisible consensus around is not an acceptable substitute for discussion. Now this is all irrelevant to the actual subject at hand and I think you've sidetracked us enough. If you have any further good faith contributions please add them. This proposal at hand is simply to reword the current reference to Anno Domini to be to the BC era. Clearly the BC era is not the AD era (the letters give it away, they were developed separately, and the AD system was used long before the BC era, they have different functions), and it's the use of the BC era which precludes a year zero, I mean you could equally say there's no 1BC in the Anno Domini era. It's a very minor change, that doesn't change the intended meaning of the current version but does clarify it and make it more accurate. Also dates within the AD era do not differ in any respect from their equivalent dates in astronomical numbering, so contrasting them doesn't make a lick of sense.121.74.8.48 (talk) 21:06, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

The Anno Domini system includes BC, see the article. Even the era includes BC. There is no need for obscurantism. Dmcq (talk) 23:17, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me, no it doesn't, I think actually you need to see that article, as well as the article on Calendar eras, not that referencing wikipedia articles is particularly valid. The issue with its title dates back much further to when it had a wider scope concerning all aspects of Dionysius' estimate of the incarnation of Jesus, such as BCE and CE as well, which got split off. The Anno Domini system dates to the 6th C, the use of the BC era, or rather its equivalent ante Christum, dates to much much later in the 17th. BC is pretty clearly not part of the AD system by the very definition of what the terms mean. Accusing me of obscurantism is unacceptable and a violation of AGF. I note also that you still have not answered the counter-argument on ISO 8601 below, are you conceding the point?121.74.8.48 (talk) 00:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you meant the christian and pre-christian eras? they definitely are in the same calendar era. ISO 8601 being used for year zero is original research on your part. And when AD or BC was set up is irrelevant. And making distinctions when there is no need and appealing to dates when things were set up is obscurantism. All that matters is how they are used now not how the Franks or Normans used them. Appealing to 'by very definition' and ignoring the evidence is original research. Please try to do something useful instead. Dmcq (talk) 01:04, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

To address your points in order;

• No, I meant the AD Calendar era, and the BC calendar era, which are clearly distinct.
• The proleptic calendar that is a part of the provisions of ISO 8601 does include a year zero, this isn't original research it's simply a fact, I'm not even sure what I'm meant to make of the phrase 'being used for year zero'.
• When they date from is perfectly relevant for demonstrating they are separate and distinct.
• There is a distinction; I don't need to explain a need for it.
• I've already pointed out that accusing me of obscurantism is a violation of AGF, please do not do it again.
• The AD calendar era and BC calendar era are considered different calendar eras in the present, read the articles here.
• Pointing out the definition of the terms is perfectly valid when that's very the subject under discussion, the definition of the terms is the evidence, there's no original research there. I can hardly ignore your evidence when you haven't provided anything to the contrary.
• No need to be rude, improving the article is useful.121.74.8.48 (talk) 01:31, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Well that's a week, I think I've answered the points you put forward, and you haven't presented any counter. I'll give you a bit more time but I think the facts of the case support my proposal; "Within the BC calendar era, the year 1 BC is the first year before AD 1; no room is reserved for a year zero" (BTW, I realise this section appears quite long, but that's simply because it's dealing with a few different things, properly it should be separated into sections dealing with the original issue relating to the reference to historians that's since been resolved, another dealing with calendar eras, and another with ISO 8601, at the very least).121.74.8.48 (talk) 20:30, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay two weeks sufficiently demonstrates my good faith I think, there's been no counter to the the argument for the proposal above so I'll change it.121.74.8.48 (talk) 01:45, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Saying ISO 8601 is an international standard and that it has a 0 is synthesis. It isn't an international standard as far as 0 is concerned that can only be used with the support of both players and is not part of the standard proper when people they say they use ISO 8601. You could say the standard supported an optional extension which included a year 0. Dmcq (talk) 11:02, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense, it isn't synthesis, ISO 8601 is an international standard, and it does have that proleptic calendar within its provisions as a part of it. It doesn't matter if it's optional, using the entire calendar in the first place is only optional, it's still the proleptic calendar used as part of the standard. It's only optional to use the pause button on your VCR, doesn't mean it isn't one of the options built into the thing.121.74.8.48 (talk) 20:55, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

(Actually it sounds like [0000] is allowed by the base format; it's negative numbers that need a prior agreement.) Melchoir (talk) 03:47, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

The standard defines when it is valid from which is from some international convention about the Georgian calendar in the 19th century. Dmcq (talk) 10:53, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Fascinating as this all is, I suggest Talk:0 (year) is a more appropriate place to discuss it. Si Trew (talk) 05:59, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion, that article does need work, but this discussion is over a small change in the specific text of this article. The subject of the arguments might be suitable for the subject of that article, but they are only being used at present to argue the merits of this change, not for the inclusion of their core points.121.74.8.48 (talk) 22:01, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

oh

Listing both oh and "o" seems redundant. --Belg4mit (talk) 01:50, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, I've removed it and also 'nada', which seems more like a slang term for 'nothing' rather than specifically zero afaics.Number36 (talk) 23:46, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Just thought, considering the page Null (mathematics) and the discussion on the talk page there, maybe null shouldn't be there either?Number36 (talk) 20:13, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I just looked at some other sites up that discuss 'null' as a mathematical term, and they seem to concur with the article here, in that null doesn't equate to the number/value zero as such, but to no value, or an empty set. Which could be interpreted as having zero value, but then the number zero itself would be a value. So I'll remove it from the article since it doesn't seem to be a clear synonym for the number.Number36 (talk) 02:00, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Also just noticed as I was doing that, this article already went into the difference between 'null' and a zero value within the text itself.Number36 (talk) 02:08, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

"o" is confusing. I'd prefer oh, because at least I'd know how to pronounce it. It is unclear whether "o" is pronounced: oh, zero, little oh, or something else. Much of that section is devoted to helping people know how to pronounce the words written, and then the sentence ends...' or "o"'. seems to fall flat there... Cliff (talk) 20:41, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

"Least" or "smallest"?

A few times in this article, I saw "least", which I fixed to "smallest", because "least" could confuse the reader. Because one time it said that "zero is the least ordinal number". That could be confusing, since even though 0 is the smallest ordinal number, the reader could mis-imply that 0 is less ordinal than each other ordinal number! See the Wiktionary entry on "least" here.

P.S. In the mean time I'm editing the number articles.~Wimpy Fanboy ^{t g} 17:03, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Zero as 'empty bag' vs 'empty column'

There is a second sense of zero, such as used by the ancient Egyptians, in the sense of 'empty'. This is not used as a digit with others, but to show that there is an absence of digits. The notion here is that where zero is an 'empty column' to show the absence of stones in an abacus-column, token-number (which has additive symbols for 1,10,100 etc), have numbers that behave like bags of tokens. An empty bag is represented by the zero-rune.

Another 'empty bag' symbol is used where a column has no digit. Such is known in greek (eg 5° 0' 22"). The greek number system of the time did not need a zero (eg fifty vs 50), and a special zero is needed to occupy an empty column. One might write the empty column as a dash, eg 5/- means five shillings and zero pence, or | 5 | - | 22 | in columns for the angle measure previously quoted. --Wendy.krieger (talk) 07:49, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

0 is a number.

The article begins 0 is a number, but it needs some kind of citation to back this up. Anyway the Romans for instance didn't think it was a number. 92.29.188.149 (talk) 10:57, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

The "0 is a number" joke phrase has been removed. Anyway, nowadays it is a number, and although that doesn't really need a source, I have added a good one. DVdm (talk) 12:34, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I think this page should mention, in a basic and understandable way, that the number zero in the real world basically means nothing. 70.23.220.143 (talk) 20:43, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

The article begins "0 is both a number[1] and ...". However, this is disputed, so since the reference [1] is from Bertram Russell it should say "Russell states 0 is both a number[1] and ...". Common sense should tell anyone that zero is not a number since it can never represent any physical object neither have any physical location. Nothing is nowhere or everywhere but not somewhere. Obviously zero does not exist by definition. It should be struck out of Mathematics where it causes only trouble, just as it does in programming. There is no such thing as zero, just your imagination gone wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.251.122.7 (talk) 16:11, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

By that logic there are no such things as negative numbers or imaginary numbers or really even irrational numbers. A number is not defined by its ability to 'represent physical objects'. -Achowat (talk) 16:13, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Names

I found some grammar mistakes under names. It says; In 976 the Persian encyclopedist Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Khwarizmi, in his "Keys of the Sciences", remarked that if, in a calculation, no number appears in the place of tens, 'a little circle should be used "to keep the rows" encyclopedist should be changed to encyclopedic, and before "a litte cirle should be used" there should be an and. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gizmo1313 (talk • contribs) 00:35, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

This sentence seems to me to be vague and unhelpful. For some reason, I am unable to edit this article, otherwise I would simply delete it without hesitation: "Sometimes the digit 0 is used either exclusively, or not at all, to avoid confusion altogether." Boardgamer (talk) 07:39, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

@Boardgamer, the little lock in the upper right of the article means that this page is under semi-protection. Click the lock to find out more. Cliff (talk) 00:39, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

@Gizmo, encyclopedist is the correct term. It means that al-Khwarizmi was a guy who compiled knowledge into an encyclopedia. I'll try to think of a way to make this sentence more comprehensible. Right now it takes quite a bit of knowledge about the history of mathematics (and about how we write and use numbers) to understand. Cliff (talk) 00:46, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I added "then" in the location that user:gizmo1313 suggested an "and" should be placed. I think there is one too many commas in the sentence, but I'm no English major. Cliff (talk) 01:16, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Dead link

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

• http://www.neo-tech.com/zero/part6.html
  • In 0 (number) on 2011-05-20 22:35:17, 404 Not Found
  • In 0 (number) on 2011-05-31 15:23:30, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 15:23, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Removed. Cliff (talk) 17:24, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Computing : IEEE 754 signed zero

There should be a mention, with links, of IEEE 754 floating point formats. In those, there are two zeroes, +0 & -0, with the same value but distinguishable by using their reciprocals. In ECMAScript, all values X of the Number type apart from NaN have a sign which can be determined by comparing (X + 1/X) with zero. 94.30.84.71 (talk) 18:06, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Zero in Statistics (Null Hypothesis)

Shouldn't there be a mention of the Null Hypothesis, denoted by H₀, as it is used in Hypothesis Testing in statistics? Since the Null Hypothesis as part of a hypothesis test denotes the current default theory (as the Null Hypothesis entry points out) being tested, and zero is considered the default placeholder, this article should certainly mention why the Null Hypothesis is considered "null". I would edit this in myself if I could, but I am not registered as a user here and felt it was a matter best brought here for discussion. I'm also not sure where in the article one would put this bit of information. Anyone want to look into this? 76.235.164.225 (talk) 00:45, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm willing to help, but I'm not quite sure that I understand your point. I assumed the H₀ notation was merely a convention, similar to how some sequences start numbering at 0 rather than at 1. Do you have a source that discusses the necessity of this style of naming? Cliff (talk) 10:17, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

"NULL" Value In Databases (Computer Science Section)

In the In computer science section, a paragraph read:

In databases, it is possible for a field not to have a value. It is then said to have a null value. For numeric fields it is not the value zero. For text fields this is not blank nor the empty string. The presence of null values leads to three-valued logic. No longer is a condition either true or false, but it can be undetermined. Any computation including a null value delivers a null result. Asking for all records with value 0 or value not equal 0 will not yield all records, since the records with value null are excluded.

I don't know how pedantic we want to get here but in this case NULL is indeed a value: operations using it are well-defined (as opposed to undefined). A better way to think of a nullable column of type T is that its type has been extended to another type whose values include all values of type T and additionally the value NULL, whose operations have been changed to (roughly) accept and ignore the value NULL, and where additional operations such as "IS NULL" and "IS NOT NULL" have been added.

At any rate, I've changed the first two sentences to fix the gross inaccuracy (the field "not having a value"); dunno what people want to do about the rest. Personally, I think this whole thing may not belong on this page, though I certainly see a parallel in the approach of naïve thinkers to this and to the concept of the number 0, which has been considered by some as not being a number. Cjs (talk) 04:29, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Oops, turns out the page is protected and I'd not noticed this. I suggest someone who can edit the page change the first two sentences to read

In SQL and many other databases, it's possible for a field to have the value NULL. This is an additional value that is not the same as 0 in numeric fields or an empty string in string fields.

Cjs (talk) 04:29, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

"Any computation including a null value delivers a null result." also isn't always true, especially for aggregate functions. Can you re-write that whole section you quoted above? I'll put it in the article for you. Cheers, — Bility (talk) 10:24, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Edit request on 11 January 2012

197.123.17.129 (talk) 02:42, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

What do you want to edit in this article? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:53, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 31 May 2012

To fix a typo, please change "calculation s" to "calculations" in the following sentence:

"Since the 4th century BC, counting rods were used in China for decimal calculation s including"

96.236.123.4 (talk) 13:45, 31 May 2012 (UTC) Y Taken care of. Thanks! Achowat (talk) 13:54, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

O vs. Oh

Regarding Names for the number 0 in English: We've just had two edits on this. The first, earlier this morning, changed "Oh" to "O". The second (just now) reverted it. The OED online suggests that O is more correct, but Oh is acknowledged as a variant. Also, OED says ought is British, aught American. Zyxwv99 (talk) 20:21, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't see this earlier. I reverted it to 'o', as the relationship between the similarity in form of letter and number seems more relevant to the specific pronunciation, but added an IPA pronunciation guide for clarification.Number36 (talk) 23:21, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

   Me too. As i've said in my second edit summary for the sentence in question,

Actually, Merriam-Webster gives "o" as an alternate spelling of "oh", presumably in all the senses of "oh" that it recognizes.

and surely both the preferred and secondary are worth including. So i've just now included both.
   Perhaps more controversially, i also added (earlier) the limitation

in contexts where at least one adjacent digit distinguishes it from the letter "O"

even tho i don't know where i'd look to find verification that the uses are all like "Double-oh-7", "PT-1-oh-9", "Boeing 7-oh-7", and "the six-oh-five" (and i am not the one who added that text to the lead of the interstate article). Oh, hell, i just thot of double-aught buckshot -- no, wait a minit: actually my argument says people are more likely to say "double-aught buckshot" than "double-oh buckshot" -- and that is the case with both me (tho i'm not a shooter) and with our article.
   Whadda y'all think?
--Jerzy•t 06:09, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

0 as an imaginary number

0 should be considered an imaginary number, as well as a real number. It would preserve the closure of addition and subtraction in the set of imaginary numbers. e.g., 5i-5i=0 It was also preserve the closure of addition and subtraction within sets of integer multiples of complex numbers. 96.229.217.189 (talk) 20:03, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

We're not hear to discuss how people should think about the subject, but simply what people think about the subject and how it should be integrated into the article. Do you have a reliable source for 0 being imaginary? Achowat (talk) 20:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

   I'm not sure it was fair to assume that 96... meant "should" and "would" to be taken that literally, and i felt the need to find this (at [http://www.wiziq.com/tutorial/4132-Complex-Numbers-Topic-1 Complex Numbers Topic 1):

(iv) A complex number is an imaginary number if and only if its imaginary part is non-zero. Here real part may or may not be zero. 3 + 2i is an imaginary number but not purely imaginary. (v) All purely imaginary numbers except zero are imaginary numbers but an imaginary number may or may not be purely imaginary.

And still, having reassured myself by finding it, i admire the initiative of 96.... in taking the thot that far. While it is off-topic on this talk page, i'd be glad to share a few further thots with them (or others) via some subset of our User-talk pages.
--Jerzy•t 04:03, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

• [http://www.nature.ac.cn/papers/paper-pdf/spirit-pdf.pdf Annotation of symbol basing on imaginary number and real number about zero.] (2009) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.213.242.134 (talk) 04:57, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Whaaahoh! Chinese arithmetic Is it really the hardest thing there is? --RacerX¹¹ Talk to me^{Stalk me} 05:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

It is simple or initial work, but there are a lot of contradictions and interrogations in this paper（Annotation of symbol basing on imaginary number and real number about zero）. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.213.242.134 (talk) 11:30, 5 September 2012 (UTC)