Poll: Is zero a number? (Read before voting)

[kouriichi]

Well you can see 1 cat.
You litterally cannot see 0 cats.

One is a number, because you can give it value. 1+1=2 so it has a definative value.
0+0=0. It has no value. Zero cannot be shown outside the realm of concept, so its only an idea.

And scientifically, idea's dont exist eather. Little zappy lightening bolts in your head do.

I dont know what you propose a theory to be then, but any answer other than "an idea" I will disagree with you on.

I would also like to pose that even if you maintain your "you cant see 0 cats" argument, you cannot actively see the number 1, either. You certainly cannot see i cats, and yet i is a number which is as important to modern day mathematics, physics and engineering as 1, e or pi.

Oh which is a good thought... You can never see an irrational number of objects. They too are still numbers though. Say you will never see pi cats. pi is certainly a number.

Well yes, you can see 1 cat.

heres an example.

There is 1 guy stuck in a doggy door.
1 has a value. You can place mass, weight, and volume to the number 1.
There by, in the physical world, 1 can exist.

Now remove the 1 guy.
There is now just a doggy door. Not 0 guys in 1 doggy door.

XD see what i mean?

But if you still say that there is 0 guys in 1 door, does that make it any less true than saying there is just 1 door? more often than not, the exclusion of such a detail such as "0 guys" implies that there is zero of anything that holds any subjective meaning. Thus the reason people would not say "0 guy and 1 doggy door" is because it would just be redundant.

((copyed from my other post because i way to lazy to type it out again))
But the problem that i find, is 0 has no value.
1 and on all have values.
Numbers were ment to show value.
0 has no value, meaning it cannot be shown.

There would never be 0 guys in a catflap. there would be ((insert amount)) units of air in the catflap.

because there is something there. Not 0.

For 0 to exist, it would have to occupy space. So the minimum amount of something that can exist 1.

its the same with Space. Space itself is not 0, but 1. There is one space aorund earth. One gaint pool of nothing, filled millions of somethings

 

[DSK-]

According to the Denary numbering system (which runs from 0-9) it's a number.

 

[The Bum]

Now my brain just hurts

 

[Freeze_L]

this cup is moving at 0 m/s relative to the earth.

In space there is one body floating, and no one heard him scream. But there are 0 penguins.

if i have 1 apple and i eat, there are 0 whole apples in the room.

0 is a whole number, in the classification of numbers. it is a number used to denote the absence of a quality, algebra is impossible with out the number 0.

case closed.

Now lets move on to why imaginary numbers exist...

 

[MikailCaboose]

Though it may not a number,it is still a mathematically provable concept nonetheless. Although, in that same vein, one could argue that all numbers are merely concepts, and that the absence of anything is just as measurable and physical as one of something. Your argument of "a vacuum" is (in my opinion)a little moot, as a vacuum is defined as any situation where no particles exist in a given area. Thus, a vacuum is a measurement of zero.
And regardless of whether-or-not zero is a number or not, the fact still remains that it is the single most important mathematical concept existent.

 

[zidine100]

A number is a symbol developed by humans to convay mathematical thoughts,

0 is in fact a number, the same way 1 is a number, as they both display a quantity, sure the number 0 means that there is offically no quantity of a specific thing ergo zero has a quantity, and that quantity would be nothing.

i know it sounds like im talking like a crazzy man, but it makes alot of sence to me. sounds paradoxical but its not ment to be nothing does not mean 0 it means theres nothing there... okay you get my point they mean the same thing but you can understand what im getting at right....RIGHT.....

still i can see where your coming from, but if you can create a better numbering system that doesnt have this (im not calling it a problem because, really its not) id be amazed, then id steal it and then claim copywright over it, but i would be amazed.

still that is a really good question that ive heard and debated about before.

 

[Adventurer2626]

Well damn, I just don't know now. Usually it's used to represent a lack of a certain...er..thing, which technically would be an amount. It can't in that context be 'nothing,' because 'nothing' would include the 0 quantities of everything else. However you are correct in that it would be (grammatically speaking) the same as saying "no" X are present. I really can't decide just now what I believe. +1 internet for blowing my mind. but -0.5 internets for making me clean my bits of brain of my keyboard. Shame on you.

 

[esperandote]

all numbers are concepts, actually all of them are part of one big concept.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Well, I want to see flaming puppies, so of course is is. It's on the number line.

 

[bob-2000]

Numbers are simply ideas to represent a certain amount. Because nothing is indeed an amount, zero is therefore a number.

 

[gl1koz3]

"Yes, I have 0 apples in my room at this current time. No, that does NOT make 0 a number. I can also say no apples are in my room. Is 'no' a number? Absolutely not."

Your definition of zero has been declined by brain. It is obvious once it is used to serve a purpose, it has this purpose. Thus serving a purpose of a number is being a number, which your statement implies.

 

[ICanBreakTheseCuffs]

wow...after this I'll ask my math teacher and probably stump him

 

[SGrahambo]

But the problem that i find, is 0 has no value.
1 and on all have values.
Numbers were ment to show value.
0 has no value, meaning it cannot be shown.

There would never be 0 guys in a catflap. there would be ((insert amount)) units of air in the catflap.

because there is something there. Not 0.

For 0 to exist, it would have to occupy space. So the minimum amount of something that can exist 1.

You keep trying to give 0 a material, touch-it-feel-it form. I'll go back and restate what I said in one of my posts; would I be telling the truth if I tell you that you have 0 jellyfish in your hand right now? To say that I'm wrong that you have 0 jellyfish could only mean that you are right now holding a jellyfish.
0 simply represents something not being there.
Perhaps you just worded it wrong, but to say "there can never be 0 guys in a catflap" implies that every catflap has at least 1 guy in it (or a fraction of a guy if you insist on not using whole numbers).

its the same with Space. Space itself is not 0, but 1. There is one space aorund earth. One gaint pool of nothing, filled millions of somethings

But does Space exist? for like the number zero, space is a representation of nothing; a definition that represents what occupies that area. I agree that Space is not 0, but I disagree that space is 1. Space is just a whole-lotta-nothin'. Space is infinite. Space is confusing as heck and hurts my brain.

 

[tigermilk]

I don't know much about maths (I presume this is maths) but I have a question. I roll a dice or toss a coin the outcomes 1-6 or heads/tails I would assume are pretty easy to work out 16.666% or 50% I assume, (ignoring the coin landing on its edge etc). So the probability of rolling a dice/tossing a coin and it landing on a side with the commonly accepted value of apples, rhaasvhal (random letters I typed) or false is "0". Is this just semantics or does it contribute to the discussion of the nature of "0" as a number at all as "0" is the answer to a question about probability?

 

[ProfessorLayton]

It's a symbol. But then again... any number is a symbol. 1 is the symbol of there only being a single item. But either way... we must erase zero to truly start over...

 

[Silver_Shade]

For another example, say you travel -1 miles forwards. Well all that means is that you traveled 1 mile BACKWARDS. Positive and negative imply direction.

I disagree. You can't move negative miles. Moving a mile backwards in still positive, I've still gone a mile, I just went a mile backwards. Look at your odometer, it will agree with me.

You can claim that -1 mile is moving backwards, but that only holds true if you're traveling to a specific destination on a set path. I can back down my driveway and still be on route, and I can drive forwards down a road in the opposite direction of my endpoint and be negative miles closer to my destination.

But I have still traveled positive miles.

This whole debate is pointless without modifiers. I can say that my car has moved zero miles, and you can say "Ah, but at some point someone drove it, so that can't be true." And we'll both be right. My car has moved many miles since it was created, but zero since I last parked it.

In the same vein, apples may exist somewhere, but if you have no apples, and someone asks you for one, you still can't oblige them.

You can claim that zero is simply an abstract concept, since you can't signify nothing, but we have signified nothing. We created words to describe the absence of things, and this number called 'zero'.

Zero is a null value, and it's necessary for us. I also disagree with the people making the point that civilizations survived without an idea of zero. On the one hand, because they still had words for 'nothing' and 'lacking', but also because it's a useless argument. They also survived without penicillin and indoor plumbing, but that doesn't make those things pointless.

I realize that a lot of this has been said in previous posts, but I wanted to join the debate.

 

[Nouw]

Not too sure, I need to read all theories of both sides. You know what I voted for.

(Possibly most intelligent thread I've seen here for a long time. All I've seen are VS.Threads, Zombie Apocalypse and shaving your pubes)

 

[ninjajoeman]

I believe that it has to be a number because how else is there going to be a reciprocal for infinity. Also zero like all other numbers is a variable.

I don't know much about maths (I presume this is maths) but I have a question. I roll a dice or toss a coin the outcomes 1-6 or heads/tails I would assume are pretty easy to work out 16.666% or 50% I assume, (ignoring the coin landing on its edge etc). So the probability of rolling a dice/tossing a coin and it landing on a side with the commonly accepted value of apples, rhaasvhal (random letters I typed) or false is "0". Is this just semantics or does it contribute to the discussion of the nature of "0" as a number at all as "0" is the answer to a question about probability?

oh god don't start talking about probability of getting something. because there is infinite ways for that dice to land. Say for instance the 4 facing towards you or parallel to you. So there is zero chance for it to land just like that. (trying to back up your response)

 

[kouriichi]

But the problem that i find, is 0 has no value.
1 and on all have values.
Numbers were ment to show value.
0 has no value, meaning it cannot be shown.

There would never be 0 guys in a catflap. there would be ((insert amount)) units of air in the catflap.

because there is something there. Not 0.

For 0 to exist, it would have to occupy space. So the minimum amount of something that can exist 1.

You keep trying to give 0 a material, touch-it-feel-it form. I'll go back and restate what I said in one of my posts; would I be telling the truth if I tell you that you have 0 jellyfish in your hand right now? To say that I'm wrong that you have 0 jellyfish could only mean that you are right now holding a jellyfish.
0 simply represents something not being there.
Perhaps you just worded it wrong, but to say "there can never be 0 guys in a catflap" implies that every catflap has at least 1 guy in it (or a fraction of a guy if you insist on not using whole numbers).

its the same with Space. Space itself is not 0, but 1. There is one space aorund earth. One gaint pool of nothing, filled millions of somethings

But does Space exist? for like the number zero, space is a representation of nothing; a definition that represents what occupies that area. I agree that Space is not 0, but I disagree that space is 1. Space is just a whole-lotta-nothin'. Space is infinite. Space is confusing as heck and hurts my brain.

Well technically, there is 1 space. There arnt 2 spaces outside of earth. ((unless you count planets with atmospheres but thats an entirely different subject))

Yes you would be true saying i have 0 jellyfish in my hand, but theres also 0 garbage trucks, 0 jhonny depps, 0 hundred dollar bills and 0 sexy women. ((shes in utah visiting family right now))

0 has no value, meaning you cannot attach it to anything that exists, meaning 0 its self in the litteral sense, doesnt exist. its a place holder, not a number. its there for ease, but its not there for use.

it Physically cannot exist in the universe. Even in a vacuum, there is still matter, meaning in nothing, there is still something.

0 is both non-existant and relative. You could sum it up with the parodox, "there are zero zeros in the zero because zero ate zero with zero on the one log in the town of zero."

Its a paradox because the 1 log cannot exist in the town of zero XD

 

[Lukeje]

Whether something is a number or not has no basis in physical reality. A number is an abstract mathematical concept.

Edit:

I believe that it has to be a number because how else is there going to be a reciprocal for infinity. Also zero like all other numbers is a variable.

Please don't tell me that you define 0 as the reciprocal of infinity? The limit of x[sup]-1[/sup] as x tends to infinity is zero. (infinity)[sup]-1[/sup] is undefined; you can't treat infinity as a number.