[NBLUG/talk] The Romans' ban on zero

[Steve Zimmerman]

Oh good, another "hair-splitting fest."  ; )

On Thursday 29 May 2003 10:55 am, Eric Eisenhart wrote:

> Zero will go into a number an infinite number of times, because it's so
> small.  If you have a whole pie of circumference P and you give away a
> slice of P/4 arc length, you can give away 4 of those.  On the other hand,
> you can give away an infinite amount of no pie.

But how can "nothing" go into "something" any times at all?  Even
if it's "nothing" times infinity, it's not "going into" something if it's
nothing!

1 / 0.1 = 10
1 / 0.01 = 100  ....Oh, I see.  You guys are falling for the limit idea.
Incorrect, because the limit of 1/x as x approaches 0, as I am defining
it, is zero.  If f(x) = 1/x, then f(x) goes way, way up as x gets tinier,
but when x = 0, it plummets down to 0.  Which disproves the whole
idea of a "continuous function" anyway, because at what value
does x plummet down to zero?  At that point, there is a fuzziness,
a discontinuity, a break, a peculiar form of insanity, perhaps, but
it illustrates the fundamentally illusory nature of higher math.

So, I submit to you, the commonsensical idea that "nothing"
can't go into "something" should take precedence over 
status quo math, no matter how much that notion may violate
status quo math.  I prefer common sense to status quo, when
the two differ.

	-- Steve Zimmerman