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SYSK Selects: How Zero Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Hi there, how there, It's me Josh, your friend with
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Speaker 1: this week's edition of s Y s K Selects. And
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Speaker 1: for this week I've selected How Zero Works, a surprisingly
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Speaker 1: riveting episode about Zero. You know, Zero, made famous by
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Speaker 1: the phrase you better lose that zero and get yourself
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Speaker 1: a hero. Well, it turns out Zero is pretty great
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Speaker 1: in its own right. Just listen to this episode. Okay, enjoy.
0:30
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of My
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Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:41
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chub Bryant, and this
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Speaker 1: is a rare, unusual mathematical uh episode of the Stuff
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Speaker 1: you Should Know. Yes, And I'm just gonna step out
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Speaker 1: of the room and I'll be back in what minutes.
0:55
Speaker 1: You to do this? This is not going to be
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Speaker 1: another Yo yo episode. Oh I just hate math. This
1:01
Speaker 1: was this was This is not math heavy at all.
1:04
Speaker 1: It's about the history of Zero. It's about the weirdness
1:07
Speaker 1: of Zero, my hero Zero. Exactly until you came a
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Speaker 1: people counted on their fingers and toes. I posted that
1:15
Speaker 1: to down Facebook. I don't know what that is. The
1:17
Speaker 1: Schoolhouse rock, I don't know he ro Zero. I don't
1:21
Speaker 1: remember that one until you came along. Keep going it
1:23
Speaker 1: on her fingers and toes. It's basically you would appreciate
1:26
Speaker 1: it because it sings what you wrote. Oh, that's great
1:31
Speaker 1: in a much more basic way. But basically trying to
1:34
Speaker 1: teach kids how amazing zero is, and don't discount it
1:37
Speaker 1: as just it's a number. It's not the absence of something. Well,
1:42
Speaker 1: there's a lot, there's a bunch to it. It's many,
1:44
Speaker 1: many things. It's a multifaceted uh number, not the multifaceted entity. Well,
1:53
Speaker 1: nol is German for zero. Did you know that bub
1:57
Speaker 1: kiss is I believe Spanish for zero zilch silch is cajun.
2:03
Speaker 1: I did actually get a little etymology research. Originally sanscrit
2:09
Speaker 1: was sonya, which meant empty. Then later Arabriic was sepia
2:14
Speaker 1: or nothing, then Italian was sapio, and then finally French
2:18
Speaker 1: gave us zero, right, and it wasn't you know we
2:22
Speaker 1: represent zero as something that looks confusingly like an oh
2:25
Speaker 1: yeah right. That was the Europeans who did that. Prior
2:29
Speaker 1: to that, the Arabs and I believe the Indians too,
2:33
Speaker 1: um represented zero with a heavy dot. You know where
2:38
Speaker 1: that might have come from Robert Kaplan's book The Nothing
2:43
Speaker 1: That Is a Natural History of Zero. He speculates that
2:46
Speaker 1: the shape comes from the round depression left in the
2:49
Speaker 1: sand a sand counting board once you remove a stone
2:53
Speaker 1: from it, sence would be a round thing, That's what
2:58
Speaker 1: he he thinks, he speculates. But that wouldn't have haven't
3:01
Speaker 1: have been the Europeans. It was the Europeans that came
3:04
Speaker 1: up with that. Well no, but you said, uh like
3:07
Speaker 1: a heavy dot. Yeah, heavy do could be the depression
3:10
Speaker 1: where a stone was insane. That's a good one. Who
3:14
Speaker 1: was that, Robert Kaplan? Thanks? Mr Kaplan. Um, well, I
3:20
Speaker 1: guess I feel like we've kind of done a pretty
3:22
Speaker 1: good set up here, Chuck. We've talked about how zero
3:26
Speaker 1: is multifaceted, um, and you we talked about the Arabs
3:30
Speaker 1: and the Indians, right yeah, um, And we have to
3:34
Speaker 1: go back even further. Two first find when Zero made
3:40
Speaker 1: itself known? Should we get the way back machine? Let's
3:44
Speaker 1: I think, let's blow the dust off of this thing. Sorry, wow,
3:49
Speaker 1: that was right at you. I think this thing still works.
3:52
Speaker 1: Let's find out you're ready? Yeah, hey, look at their
3:56
Speaker 1: wow lit up like a flex capacitor. Is nice. Um,
4:02
Speaker 1: we're back in ancient Sumer and these baked clay tablets
4:06
Speaker 1: haven't even been baked yet. They're still wet. Look, wow
4:11
Speaker 1: was here? Um so Chuck. If you'll look at this
4:16
Speaker 1: clay tablet, do you see these two U diagonal lines,
4:21
Speaker 1: there's little wedges. Yeah, those, my friend, represent nothing really,
4:27
Speaker 1: And the reason they're there is because round about this
4:30
Speaker 1: time somebody figured out they ran into a problem and
4:34
Speaker 1: when they were making some sort of tax record or
4:37
Speaker 1: grain inventory that um, you know, showing that basically writing
4:42
Speaker 1: out three thousand lines for the three thousand heads of
4:46
Speaker 1: cattle doesn't make any sense. But let's say you have, um,
4:50
Speaker 1: three hundred, you have three thousand heads of cattle, and
4:53
Speaker 1: all you have are the ways to represent three hundred
4:56
Speaker 1: heads of cattle. There's a big difference, right, there's an
5:00
Speaker 1: extra digit in there, and that those two diagonal lines
5:04
Speaker 1: were used to represent one of those digits when there
5:07
Speaker 1: was not any digits there. But there's something to the
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Speaker 1: left of it and something to the right of it,
5:11
Speaker 1: that's right. And Caplan also said that before that even
5:15
Speaker 1: they just would leave a blank space sometimes before they
5:18
Speaker 1: even came up with the little wedges, right, So what
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Speaker 1: what this is all based on is basically our numerical system,
5:27
Speaker 1: where if you look at a string of numbers right,
5:30
Speaker 1: starting from the right, you have the ones column, the
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Speaker 1: tens column, the hundreds, the thousands, the ten thousands, the
5:39
Speaker 1: hundred thousands, and so on. You want me to keep
5:41
Speaker 1: going ad infinitum um. And in each of these columns
5:45
Speaker 1: there may or may not be numbers present. So when
5:48
Speaker 1: there are numbers present, we have our friends zero to
5:51
Speaker 1: serve as what's considered a place holder. Yeah. Makes I
5:54
Speaker 1: mean it's very easy to just say, well, the now,
6:00
Speaker 1: but way back then before there was a zero that
6:04
Speaker 1: you know, we take it very much for granted. Yeah,
6:06
Speaker 1: this is huge. That's changed everything, changed everything, um, all
6:09
Speaker 1: of a sudden now because I mean we said there's
6:11
Speaker 1: a big difference between three thousand head of cattle and
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Speaker 1: three head of cattle, and by putting a zero there
6:17
Speaker 1: right saying this this column is represented, there's just not
6:21
Speaker 1: any in here. You're not going to find the two
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Speaker 1: cattle that should be in this right, that changed everything.
6:27
Speaker 1: It changed everything. I mean there was frustrating before that, Yeah,
6:30
Speaker 1: like if only there was something to put there. Yeah,
6:34
Speaker 1: And I guess when they like, just trust me, I
6:36
Speaker 1: have two thousand cattle. And I guess when they left
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Speaker 1: the blank space that got confusing because they could have
6:41
Speaker 1: thought it was an error. So they figured we have
6:43
Speaker 1: to put something there so they know it's not just
6:46
Speaker 1: an oversight, right exactly. And that's the diagonal lines. Well
6:51
Speaker 1: in this, uh, I think before it even became that standardized,
6:55
Speaker 1: it was they used different things. Because they found a
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Speaker 1: tablet from seven BC and a dude to use three
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Speaker 1: little hooks to represent zero. Well that would have been
7:04
Speaker 1: after that, because the Sumerians were doing this like five
7:07
Speaker 1: thousand years ago. Well, it's probably hard to get the
7:09
Speaker 1: word around, right, you know, three hooks? What is this crowd? Exactly? Um.
7:15
Speaker 1: So the Sumerians are the first documented to to come
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Speaker 1: up or stumble upon zero as a placeholder, and then
7:23
Speaker 1: it was um codified with the invention of the abbacus,
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Speaker 1: which uses you know, our numerical column system, right we
7:30
Speaker 1: used today, um, which was invented by the Babylonians about
7:33
Speaker 1: three hundred BC. Wow, right, smart folks back then, So
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Speaker 1: we have zero as a placeholder. We have this understanding
7:41
Speaker 1: now that there's there's something out there, like we can
7:44
Speaker 1: represent nothingness, but It wasn't until um, the fifth century
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Speaker 1: a d in India where zero first comes about as
7:53
Speaker 1: a concept as a number, which is equally groundbreaking. Yeah. Well,
7:57
Speaker 1: this nothingness, we should point out, was not something that
8:00
Speaker 1: people were comfortable with back then. True, oddly now it
8:04
Speaker 1: seems odd, but to have something representing nothing made people
8:08
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable. It was associated with chaos and the great
8:12
Speaker 1: void and even the sign of the devil. Yes, it was. Well.
8:16
Speaker 1: I mean that if you look at the Christian theology, um,
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Speaker 1: the void, which is represented by zero or nothingness, was
8:25
Speaker 1: the state of the universe before the creation of man. Humans.
8:30
Speaker 1: Uh seeks feel the same way too, although I don't
8:32
Speaker 1: know how they felt about zero, but that was there there.
8:35
Speaker 1: That's their conception as well. There was nothing, there's void, um.
8:39
Speaker 1: And then also void fits well with chaos, which is
8:43
Speaker 1: the Christian conception of hell, right, like no one's in charge, right.
8:48
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was avoided. I don't know. I went
8:50
Speaker 1: back and look, Chuck after I wrote this article, Um,
8:53
Speaker 1: when we were studying today, I went back and looked,
8:55
Speaker 1: and I didn't find a lot of support for that,
8:58
Speaker 1: didn't I did see that like the during the Dark Ages,
9:02
Speaker 1: monks kind of were Probably they feared zero. Well Kaplan
9:06
Speaker 1: mentioned it in his book, so, but I mean it
9:08
Speaker 1: was out there, but there's no well these people did this.
9:11
Speaker 1: They killed this guy for saying the word zero. There
9:13
Speaker 1: was nothing like that out there. I think. More more
9:17
Speaker 1: to the point, it was the Romans who just didn't
9:20
Speaker 1: use zero, and the West was built by Rome and
9:25
Speaker 1: um that's I think where the shunning of zero came from,
9:30
Speaker 1: not necessarily from fear, but just because the Roman numeral
9:33
Speaker 1: system doesn't have zero. Yeah. I found where. They flirted
9:37
Speaker 1: with it at first, with nulla in U l l A,
9:41
Speaker 1: which they would represent with a little inn, but it
9:44
Speaker 1: clearly didn't take. No, they said it, We're not gonna
9:47
Speaker 1: use it as zero. No, why would we ever need zero?
9:51
Speaker 1: We don't need it as zero? Right did they talk
9:54
Speaker 1: like that back then too? Yeah, like Vinny from Brooklyn, Sure,
9:59
Speaker 1: I think so. Uh So where are we in India? Yeah,
10:25
Speaker 1: we're in the fifth century a d in India and
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Speaker 1: a guy named um Ariba is possibly the person who
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Speaker 1: invented zero really possible or discovered as you like to say,
10:40
Speaker 1: thank you, yes, thank you for correcting me with my
10:43
Speaker 1: own words. That's when they are your articles. So UM,
10:49
Speaker 1: it is pretty pretty much universally accepted that zero was
10:53
Speaker 1: created or discovered in India, and then it spread pretty
10:59
Speaker 1: quickly over for UM two UH Islamic nations, Arab nations, UM,
11:06
Speaker 1: and the It was the Arabs who taught a guy
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Speaker 1: named Fibonacci Leonardo Pizza, who was a great mathematician of
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Speaker 1: the West in the I think the twelfth century or
11:19
Speaker 1: the thirteenth century. You know, people are gonna say, do
11:21
Speaker 1: the Fibonacci number. Go ahead, Well, no, no, no, people
11:25
Speaker 1: are gonna ask for that podcast. In fact, they've already
11:28
Speaker 1: been asking for that podcast. Do you want to do
11:30
Speaker 1: that one? Do you want to maybe? Probably not? Well,
11:35
Speaker 1: Fibonacci was um, the son of a customs officer in Algeria, Chuck,
11:40
Speaker 1: and he had Arabic tutors, and they said, hey, kid,
11:44
Speaker 1: we're gonna teach you how to really do math. Because
11:46
Speaker 1: by this time, by the I think the twelve hundreds
11:50
Speaker 1: UM or the eleven hundreds of the Salt century, UH,
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Speaker 1: the Arabs were very well versed in mathematics and the
11:57
Speaker 1: West was still just complete idiots. Fortunately, Fibonacci was over
12:02
Speaker 1: there getting tutored and he figured out, wow, this is
12:05
Speaker 1: really really important, and introduced our Arabic numeral system which
12:10
Speaker 1: we used today, uh, to the West through a book.
12:13
Speaker 1: So you said he wrote a book. Did he write
12:15
Speaker 1: the book? No, he wasn't the only one. Okay, No,
12:19
Speaker 1: that's not true for the West. Yes, he wrote the book,
12:22
Speaker 1: and then other people wrote treatises on his book. So
12:24
Speaker 1: he pretty much said the basis. Yes, okay, he was
12:27
Speaker 1: the fulcrum, the hinge between West and Middle East. A
12:32
Speaker 1: zero is a fulcrum, Yes, it is interesting. Um. So
12:37
Speaker 1: he was the one who introduced it to the West.
12:39
Speaker 1: But again, I mean we say that because we're Western writers, chuck.
12:42
Speaker 1: But it was very well established for hundreds of years
12:45
Speaker 1: by the time Fibonaci heard about zero. Yeah. And you
12:48
Speaker 1: also point out interestingly that simultaneously and completely independently of India, uh,
12:54
Speaker 1: in Central America, the Maya were also uh beginning or
12:58
Speaker 1: already using zero yeah to uh, mainly for their calendar. Right. Yeah,
13:02
Speaker 1: it was there. It was the base of counting um,
13:06
Speaker 1: which makes sense. It totally makes sense, and it makes
13:08
Speaker 1: for a more accurate calendar. Right. So like for mine calendars,
13:12
Speaker 1: like the day of the month would be zero day,
13:15
Speaker 1: then one day than two day, than three day and
13:17
Speaker 1: so on. How would you say that though, because you
13:19
Speaker 1: say first, second third, how would you say they had um?
13:22
Speaker 1: They had different names for today, like Zula would be
13:27
Speaker 1: zul or you know, mon or something like that. It
13:31
Speaker 1: was like the rather than first second third. They didn't
13:34
Speaker 1: have numerals like that, like first second third that's Arabic.
13:38
Speaker 1: So to the Maya, it was like zul day. Didn't
13:40
Speaker 1: that Ghostbusters? I think so? But that was what Sumerian.
13:45
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, zul was Sumerians all coming together. Um. So
13:48
Speaker 1: that does make for a lot more accurate counting UM.
13:51
Speaker 1: And that's one of the big flaws in our calendar,
13:54
Speaker 1: the Gregorian calendar, is that there is no zero year.
13:58
Speaker 1: Well and we all got that pointed out to us
14:01
Speaker 1: quite uh through the through the media, especially when the
14:05
Speaker 1: millennium turned. Because there's no year zero, our decades and
14:09
Speaker 1: our centuries and our millennia um actually occur at the
14:12
Speaker 1: end of that year and at the beginning, Like when
14:14
Speaker 1: the clock struck midnight at two thousand and we all went, yeah,
14:18
Speaker 1: new millennium, not so we still had a year left,
14:21
Speaker 1: that's right. Have we started counting from zero then? Yeah?
14:24
Speaker 1: In January first two thousand that would have been the
14:26
Speaker 1: start of the new millennium. But the the we started
14:30
Speaker 1: counting from one so one to two thousand years rather
14:34
Speaker 1: than two thousand years. And there was one guy in
14:36
Speaker 1: every bar trying to point out to as many people
14:39
Speaker 1: as he could do you realize it's not even true,
14:42
Speaker 1: and he's like, why isn't anyone buying me drinks? So
14:46
Speaker 1: why did? Why are they going to beat me up? Um?
14:50
Speaker 1: And I put a little a little notation in there
14:54
Speaker 1: because I have trouble wrapping my head around that sometimes.
14:58
Speaker 1: But the point is is there's ten single digit numbers
15:02
Speaker 1: in the Arabic numerical system that we use, and at
15:06
Speaker 1: zero through nine, anything beyond that isn't in the tens
15:09
Speaker 1: columner above, and thanks to zero, we have a ten
15:12
Speaker 1: column exactly. Take a chuck. Uh. Well, Western astronomers they
15:20
Speaker 1: came up with a system late seventeenth and early eighteenth
15:23
Speaker 1: century that designated calendar year one b C is zero
15:28
Speaker 1: and then basically anything above or below that would either
15:30
Speaker 1: be plus or minus so a B C or a
15:34
Speaker 1: D right, so uh two a D would be minus
15:38
Speaker 1: one or no two BC would be minus one bc. Yes,
15:43
Speaker 1: since we're not living in a d They just kind
15:45
Speaker 1: of screwed with the BC a little bit. So right
15:47
Speaker 1: now we're in plus two thousand twelve. Yes, which also
15:52
Speaker 1: makes I mean, it's not just calendars. I mean zero
15:55
Speaker 1: lies between negative one and one and serves as a
15:58
Speaker 1: full corum point for basically all numbering. Yeah, positive and negative.
16:03
Speaker 1: And that was Jacques Cassini who came up with that,
16:05
Speaker 1: um astronomical calendar. What the Italians are all up on
16:08
Speaker 1: this stuff, weren't they. Yeah, it'soking to be French, but
16:11
Speaker 1: yeah it is an Italian. Yeah, who knows, maybe he's
16:14
Speaker 1: Northern Italian. Yeah, exactly. Um, but yeah, so they he
16:19
Speaker 1: basically said, well, wait, why don't we just choose one
16:22
Speaker 1: year to be zero, and then we'll just basically make it.
16:24
Speaker 1: We'll make the calendar based on zero's rightful place in numbering,
16:27
Speaker 1: which is precisely between one in negative one. There's a
16:32
Speaker 1: zero there. It doesn't just go from negative one to one.
16:34
Speaker 1: Zero is, like you said, the full crumb of all numbers.
16:37
Speaker 1: It spreads out infinitely on either side. So it's not
16:40
Speaker 1: positive and it's not negative, and um, so it's the
16:44
Speaker 1: only number that is non positive and non negative. But
16:47
Speaker 1: it's neither a positive number nor a negative number. Wrap
16:50
Speaker 1: your head around that one. Yeah, you college students sitting
16:53
Speaker 1: around here at midnight, just gaze up at the stars
16:55
Speaker 1: and try and figure that out. Start counting, Start counting.
16:58
Speaker 1: It's also an integer whole number, right, Yes, and h
17:03
Speaker 1: is very handy when it comes up to ratios and fractions,
17:07
Speaker 1: because a fraction can be written in a couple of ways,
17:11
Speaker 1: either with the one on top of the other or
17:14
Speaker 1: with a little decimal point. Yes, and without those zeros,
17:17
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be able to do that. No, So this
17:20
Speaker 1: decimal system, um, basically you can look at it as
17:25
Speaker 1: anything to the right of the decimal So that tends
17:29
Speaker 1: the hundreds, the thousands, right, the th ten, hundreds about
17:34
Speaker 1: thank you. Yeah, you're getting as bad as um. They
17:38
Speaker 1: those are all encapsulated in that zero that's up to
17:42
Speaker 1: positive one, right, yeah, because it's less than a whole one.
17:46
Speaker 1: But it's not so much that it's negative one, right,
17:49
Speaker 1: it's encapsulated by that zero. So all of these ratios,
17:52
Speaker 1: all of the decimal system, gives us these incredibly precise numbers.
17:57
Speaker 1: Whereas we can count in whole numbers to the right
17:59
Speaker 1: of zero in positive whole numbers that just goes on
18:03
Speaker 1: and on and on and measures the vastness of the universe.
18:05
Speaker 1: To go the other way, to go in this infinite
18:08
Speaker 1: decimal system that's encapsulated within zero, lets you measure the
18:12
Speaker 1: infantismal right, Yeah, so it's not like, oh it's between
18:16
Speaker 1: two and three, right, I mean, try making like high
18:20
Speaker 1: quality machine parts using whole numbers. You can't know, it
18:24
Speaker 1: can't be done. So there's all sorts of things that
18:26
Speaker 1: would have never taken place. Head zero not given rise
18:29
Speaker 1: to the decimal system, or everything would be really big. Yeah,
18:32
Speaker 1: you know, everything would be like twice as large, Like
18:34
Speaker 1: the ten thousand year clock wouldn't even work. Remember they
18:36
Speaker 1: were using like fractions of an inch that still wouldn't work. Um,
18:41
Speaker 1: what else, Chuck, Well, you point out very astute lee
18:45
Speaker 1: some odd properties of zero, and they are actually called
18:49
Speaker 1: the properties of zero because it's such a weird number
18:52
Speaker 1: that you have to have properties to explain it exactly.
18:56
Speaker 1: So the which is the first one called, is the
18:58
Speaker 1: additive property of zero row addition property. Yeah, add zero
19:03
Speaker 1: to anything and you're gonna get that same thing. That
19:05
Speaker 1: sounds very basic. Same with subtracting. Sure, five plus zeros five.
19:10
Speaker 1: Zero is five, right, and it is very basic. But
19:13
Speaker 1: zero is the only number that doesn't affect another number
19:16
Speaker 1: when it's added or subtracted to it, which is important.
19:20
Speaker 1: It is anytime a number is the only thing of
19:23
Speaker 1: its kind, it's worth mentioning. Like pie. There's um, which
19:27
Speaker 1: by the way, wouldn't exist without zero in the decimal system,
19:31
Speaker 1: or any of those wouldn't exist. To us. Um, there's
19:34
Speaker 1: the additive inverse property of zero, where any numbers that
19:39
Speaker 1: add up to zero are additive inverses of one another.
19:43
Speaker 1: So negative five plus positive five, or just five as
19:48
Speaker 1: they call it in positive land, equal zero. So negative
19:51
Speaker 1: five and five are additive inverses of one another. Multiplying
19:56
Speaker 1: from the time you're I think I learned in the
19:58
Speaker 1: second grade my multiplication tables, if I remember correctly, Ms.
20:02
Speaker 1: Anderson and Ms. Temple, thank you very much. Uh. They
20:06
Speaker 1: taught me that if you multiply any number by zero,
20:09
Speaker 1: you're going to get zero. And as you point out,
20:12
Speaker 1: that multiplication is really just a quicker way of adding things.
20:17
Speaker 1: It's a shortcut. Yeah, it's a shortcut. So uh. The
20:21
Speaker 1: idea that a number can be added zero times uh,
20:25
Speaker 1: or that zero can be added to itself. That's when
20:28
Speaker 1: I get the most. Yeah, it's just doesn't make any sense.
20:31
Speaker 1: Like you like five times zero doesn't mean zero place
20:34
Speaker 1: zero place ero place zero place ero, that doesn't mean
20:36
Speaker 1: anything zero. Yeah, right, what about dividing by zero? Let
21:09
Speaker 1: me ask you? No, let me This is the part
21:11
Speaker 1: where I was like, nobody understands this. I don't feel
21:15
Speaker 1: very bad about this because no one really understands it. Um,
21:19
Speaker 1: there's no So there's these other properties of zero that
21:21
Speaker 1: cover like additive, inverse, addition, subtracting, multiplication. There is no
21:26
Speaker 1: property that says why you can't divide by zero because
21:30
Speaker 1: it's so nonsensical. It doesn't even exist. The concept of
21:33
Speaker 1: dividing by zero doesn't really actually exist except in you know,
21:38
Speaker 1: the imagination of people. I bet mathematicians have tried, though,
21:42
Speaker 1: like frustratingly tried. You can't. There's nothing you can do,
21:47
Speaker 1: and they don't even fully understand why. But the um.
21:51
Speaker 1: The best explanation that I saw was that it has
21:54
Speaker 1: to do kind of with the multiplication property right to
21:57
Speaker 1: where if you divide something, so like six divided by
22:00
Speaker 1: two equals three, So if you can divide a number, Um,
22:04
Speaker 1: the result of that number by the divisor so in
22:09
Speaker 1: this case, three and two multiplied by one another should
22:13
Speaker 1: equal the dividend, which is six. Now if you divide
22:16
Speaker 1: six by zero, right, it doesn't equal anything. It should
22:21
Speaker 1: equal zero. If you multiply it, it's not gonna equal
22:24
Speaker 1: to Uh. That's the best example I could come up with. Yeah,
22:29
Speaker 1: that makes sense, so it shouldn't. Well, I mean, you're
22:32
Speaker 1: completely insane. It makes sense that it doesn't make sense. Okay,
22:35
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. And Stephen right head a joke.
22:37
Speaker 1: He said that black holes are where God tried to
22:40
Speaker 1: divide by zero. Wo. Like, that's good, Steven right his Uh,
22:50
Speaker 1: I still did that his one bit Sometimes when um,
22:53
Speaker 1: people get in a car with me, I say, hey,
22:55
Speaker 1: put your seat belt on. I want to try something.
22:57
Speaker 1: That was one of his jokes. He's like, just try
22:59
Speaker 1: that when the someone gets in a car, he's good. Um.
23:02
Speaker 1: And then also there's the property of zero exponent, which
23:05
Speaker 1: also doesn't make any sense. Chuck, there's um you know,
23:07
Speaker 1: there's negative exponents, like numbers to the negative power tend
23:10
Speaker 1: to the negative five. Yes, because of this, mathematically it
23:14
Speaker 1: works out, but I don't understand it. UM numbers to
23:17
Speaker 1: the zero power equal one. That doesn't make any sense
23:20
Speaker 1: because zero multiplied by something should equal zero, not one.
23:26
Speaker 1: That's how it works out, though, magical mysterious number at
23:30
Speaker 1: my hero zero and I ran across one other thing
23:33
Speaker 1: that I thought was pretty cool. Um. The the the
23:36
Speaker 1: evidence of UM Islamic countries comfort with zero concept and
23:43
Speaker 1: Western countries discomfort with it can be found still today
23:46
Speaker 1: on elevators in countries where the Ottoman Turks or UM
23:51
Speaker 1: any other Islamic nation UM conquered and ruled for a while,
23:56
Speaker 1: you're still going to find evidence of a comfort with zero,
23:58
Speaker 1: like in Hungary. If you look in Spain. I here too,
24:02
Speaker 1: if you look on an elevator, the ground floor is zero,
24:05
Speaker 1: and any floor beneath that is a negative number, really
24:09
Speaker 1: like the basement parking, like negative one, negative two. Huh
24:13
Speaker 1: isn't that cool? And apparently that's because of the presence
24:17
Speaker 1: of the Turks who were there for a while. Wow, yeah,
24:20
Speaker 1: I mean they didn't have elevators then, but apparently, like
24:22
Speaker 1: the that's like, you don't see a floor zero in
24:25
Speaker 1: the West, No, you don't. We just don't like zero
24:28
Speaker 1: that much or a fourth thirteen, all right, although it
24:31
Speaker 1: is thirteen. We've had that talk before. I think, yeah,
24:35
Speaker 1: what do we have here? P? One, P two in
24:37
Speaker 1: our building? Definitely not negative. Let's say that from now on,
24:41
Speaker 1: like what love you parked on? I'm on negative four,
24:44
Speaker 1: I will say that. I will say that right now,
24:46
Speaker 1: I'm on negative three. I'm on negative two. Go and
24:51
Speaker 1: chuck um. And also, let's see you can type zero.
24:56
Speaker 1: You got anything else? You're just happy to be done
24:58
Speaker 1: with this one? No, this was actually really good. Um,
25:01
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. Zero is my hero a
25:04
Speaker 1: magic number. If you type in zero and this is
25:08
Speaker 1: the search bar how stuff works dot Com, it will
25:10
Speaker 1: bring up this article, including a cool little story that
25:13
Speaker 1: we didn't get to about a great parent. True. Uh.
25:17
Speaker 1: And also I highly encourage if if this even piqued
25:20
Speaker 1: your interest at all, I highly encourage you to read
25:23
Speaker 1: zero in four Dimensions, which is an article you can
25:26
Speaker 1: find online from two Thou Too by a guy named
25:28
Speaker 1: Hassain Arsham, and he explains in much greater depth in
25:32
Speaker 1: detail like zero and what's so cool about it? Or
25:36
Speaker 1: if you want to really get into it, Robert Kaplan
25:39
Speaker 1: wrote a whole book on it, we should do one
25:40
Speaker 1: on three al right. I pitched that article a long
25:44
Speaker 1: time ago. A long time ago, remember on on three,
25:47
Speaker 1: I remember, so those would be our two. I'd have
25:50
Speaker 1: to write it down, so I don't know if it'll
25:52
Speaker 1: ever happened, get to it. I wrote this so we
25:54
Speaker 1: could do this. You're more of a man than me, um,
25:58
Speaker 1: I think at some point in the not too distant past,
26:01
Speaker 1: Chuck I said search bar, So that means it's time
26:04
Speaker 1: for listener mail. Indeed, I'm gonna call this, uh coffee
26:10
Speaker 1: including coffee song from a listener. Okay, this is from Ashley.
26:15
Speaker 1: Great work on the Coffee podcast, gents. I could have
26:18
Speaker 1: saved my last four years of work at a cafe
26:21
Speaker 1: just by listening to y'all. Really though, it was a
26:25
Speaker 1: splendid way to spend my days getting to know the
26:27
Speaker 1: locals in downtown Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, North America. Have we
26:33
Speaker 1: entered the song yet? Because she rhymed a second in case, no,
26:37
Speaker 1: that is not the song. Okay, that's coming. Uh, She's
26:40
Speaker 1: just a rhymer by nature. I think. While I can't
26:42
Speaker 1: say I'm a total coffee snobber expert, I do have
26:44
Speaker 1: a thought on the old wise Starbucks, so better debate.
26:47
Speaker 1: I think that part of the taste comes from the
26:49
Speaker 1: number of beans used in the blend. For instance, at
26:52
Speaker 1: the cafe I used to run, we served both Milano
26:55
Speaker 1: Coffee and then Umbria. I believe that each of these companies,
26:59
Speaker 1: plus a coffee I now drink called Intelligentsia, contains a
27:04
Speaker 1: blend of beans as many as fifteen different kinds to
27:07
Speaker 1: create that smooth balance I really love. In my americanos,
27:11
Speaker 1: it's her last name Starbuck. No no no, no, she's saying
27:15
Speaker 1: Starbucks doesn't use the blend, so it's more better. Her
27:18
Speaker 1: name is mom and pop her last name. As far
27:22
Speaker 1: as I understand, Starbucks may use this view as one
27:24
Speaker 1: to three types of beans and their espresso blend. Like
27:28
Speaker 1: I said, I think this may be a part of
27:29
Speaker 1: the story, but not likely the whole story. On another note,
27:33
Speaker 1: since leaving the cafe, I now work with a group
27:36
Speaker 1: of software nerds who used to visit my cafe on
27:39
Speaker 1: a regular basis. So now I too, get to go
27:42
Speaker 1: for coffee every day. It's one of the parks of
27:44
Speaker 1: the job, pun intended. We have, uh, we even have
27:47
Speaker 1: a little coffee song. And she recorded this and sent
27:51
Speaker 1: it to us, so we're going to play that right now. Coffee, coffee, coffee,
27:56
Speaker 1: coffee all day long. When I eat some coffee, I
27:59
Speaker 1: sing the coffee song. Well that's the g rated version
28:02
Speaker 1: I learned. So how about that, Josh, that was something else.
28:07
Speaker 1: Thank you Ashley for that. Yeah, thanks a lot, she says,
28:10
Speaker 1: As you can tell, we're a bit mad about our
28:12
Speaker 1: coffee drinking. It's the new smoke break for us. What, um,
28:18
Speaker 1: where where where is that person? She didn't say, Oh no,
28:22
Speaker 1: she did say, I'm sorry, Edmonton, Alberta's earth. That's right. Well,
28:25
Speaker 1: thank you very much for that. We appreciate you and um,
28:29
Speaker 1: your co workers for making that song, for listening, for
28:33
Speaker 1: drinking coffee, indeed for caring. That's great. Yeah. Um, if
28:37
Speaker 1: you have a song, Chuck. We get them from time
28:40
Speaker 1: to time and I feel like we should we should
28:41
Speaker 1: be better about playing them. Yes, Uh, we want to
28:44
Speaker 1: hear it. You can, I guess make it as like
28:48
Speaker 1: an MP three, MP four. MP three is good, right, Jerry?
28:52
Speaker 1: MP three? Uh, and uh you can send it to us.
28:57
Speaker 1: You can tweet to us and tell us it's on
28:58
Speaker 1: the way a s y SK podcast. You can go
29:02
Speaker 1: onto Facebook can tell us it's on the way. At
29:04
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know, and you
29:06
Speaker 1: can actually send it to us at stuff podcast at
29:09
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. H Stuff you Should Know
29:18
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeart Radios how stuff Works. For
29:21
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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