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How Zero Works · Stuff You Should Know

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