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

[Ross Fixxed]

To my mind, zero is very much a number, and as much of a 'concept' as 1 or 2424 or even 434563474. Zero could possibly be debated as a valid 'quantity' which you seem to be speculating over.

I would personally consider it a valid quantity also. This is my first post here, before this one I had zero posts!

The very concept of numbering things is a human construct and once philosophy begins to be applied to the axioms it can end in the 'language takes a holiday' aspect of philosophy.
Maybe this post existed in my own brain. Realistically though the value of zero, and the quantity of zero is clear here within the escapist's forum database.

 

[pearcinator]

I am travelling ZERO miles per hour when I am stopped in traffic.

Therefore, Zero is a number.

 

[DRSH1989]

Well in mathematics, 0 (zero) is used as a number which implies the value of having nothing. There is also -0 and 0+ if I'm not mistaken when using right or left limits. In IT, we have 0 and 1 where 0 si usually false and everything else (1) is true... but 0 can also be used as a value in IT if we use programming to make a mathematics software... lol, I'm hardly an expert.
What I'm trying to say is that the meaning of "0"/zero/null/nil depends on the field/area of expertise that you are reffering to. In the 1st post of this thread you're kinda talking about 0 as philospher. For a mathematician 0 is what it is, for a programmer 0/null/nil/etc is what it is and can be something else, for a philosopher (from my point of view at least)... well philosophy implies a deep understanding of lots of things... logic, point of view...
My question is: Does it matter what 0 is and where it comes from more than how you use 0 to keep score of something or create something else?

 

[Shifty Tortoise]

I'd make an argument, but there are so many people here vastly more intelligent than me that it wouldn't even make a difference.

I will say that I do think it's a number though

 

[Yopaz]

Zero is a number, but it isn't needed as much as many other numbers, it's still a number.
In math it's a number that you can't divide by because that makes it infinite.
If you got no money in your bank you would know that 0 wasn't messing around there.
When you draw graphs 0 is there to divide the positive and the negative letting you know exactly when the change happens, there is a difference between even the smallest positive values, zero and the smallest negative value. When a graph crosses through origin it will be a double zero, or if 2 vectors are orthogonal the dot product will be zero. If zero wasn't a number then we couldn't have orthogonal vectors does that mean 90 isn't a number then? or pi for that matter? Though it is abstract it still deserve a place as a number for me and I praise Islam for making zero.
A limbo of numbers it is, but really, unbaptized numbers need a place to go when they die too.

 

[Teddy Roosevelt]

Like all properties of math, there is literally no arguing. Mathematics are universal truths. Zero is a number.

Now, infinity, being another similar question, is not a number, because it does not function as numbers should in formulas and such. it is a concept and not actually a number.

 

[Dogstile]

0 and nothing are both numbers in the same way 1 and a single are both numbers.

 

[voetballeeuw]

Yes it is. And your example of traveling three miles forward then three back, is distance vs displacement.

 

[PixelJunk]

In the context of modern day mathematics zero is certainly a number. And even within the physical universe we are just learning of dark energy "energy of nothing."


When you put this into a Neimanmeyer setting you can't really say that it is not a number. To deny it would also be denying 74% of the universe.

 

[bew11]

I realize that I already know the outcome of this poll. Most of you are going to say yes. And I don't blame you, because that's what you've been taught.

But I'd like you to take a step back and examine it further. I claim that zero is more of a concept than a number. It is a placeholder to theorize the space between positive and negative.

You could also ask if nowhere is a place.

 

[Ravek]

Like for example, lets try and multiply nothing.

.......

See what I did there? I multiplied nothing. I did nothing. And nothing happened.

Actually, multiplying nothing gets you 1.

(In the sense that the product of an empty set is 1. Of course we merely defined that to be so because then we can define products more elegantly: P({}) = 1, P({x}) = x, P(A U B) = P(A) * P(B), you get the point. I'd place a capital Pi instead of the P, but apparently the forum software can't decently handle unicode characters.)