The "I don't want to talk about AI" thread, and the new topic is: the Big 0

[EmilyMiller]

The Babylonian did not really have a way of representing zero. The Quipas were somewhere between Babylonian and Hindu-Arabic number system.

We should probably stop our sweet nothings to each other now.

i agree.

 

[StillStunned]

We should probably stop our sweet nothings to each other now.

Screw that. I went and changed the topic and all. Keep talking, you zero lovers!

 

[MillieDynamite]

There is zero chance I'll have a near-death experience today! Oh, I shouldn't've said that.

Screw that. I went and changed the topic and all. Keep talking, you zero lovers!

 

[Z_TheWriter]

So I hear the topic changed

 

[YmaOHyd]

 

[cw5523729]

Screw that. I went and changed the topic and all. Keep talking, you zero lovers!

Didn't someone post that the score LOVE in tennis was based on the French word for egg which looks like a zero...?

 

[Z_TheWriter]

So I hear the topic changed
View attachment 2578954

It's actually a pretty cool show. Like what if Batman was a mecha-pilot?
And it has a kickass theme song

 

[StillStunned]

Didn't someone post that the score LOVE in tennis was based on the French word for egg which looks like a zero...?

The eggs linger here like a bad smell...

 

[Writer61]

Marcus du Sautoy is a researcher who specializes in the history of 0. He had identified a Hindi temple as the first usage of 0, in the 600's, I believe. About two years ago, he identified a much earlier usage in a hindi manuscript. The western usage of 0 (and our digits) almost certainly came from India, through the Islamic middle east, then Fibonacci brought it into Europe.

If you want a simplification of this history, he made a BBC/PBS film (about 55 minutes long) detailing this. It's called The Story of 1 and is on YouTube.

But other cultures did understand zero and could express it. Quipas (many varant spellings from different transliterations) are pre Colombian new world knot systems that describe sequences of numbers, including zero.

Makes sense.

 

[iwatchus]

I read that as big O, which has a very specific meaning to computer scientists. And someone called college professors stuffy in another thread.

 

[TheLobster]

I read that as big O, which has a very specific meaning to computer scientists. And someone called college professors stuffy in another thread.

Well, akshually, it's the Greek letter omicron, and besides, y'all should be using the big theta instead, like Cormen et. al. intended!

 

[iwatchus]

I do realize that -- my dissertation was mostly theory -- but saying I did my doctoral research on the big O is so much more fun then trying to explain isomorphism groups..

 

[Bamagan]

Screw that. I went and changed the topic and all. Keep talking, you zero lovers!

Nothing good can come of this.

 

[StillStunned]

Nothing good can come of this.

Nothing to be done about it now though.

 

[NuclearFairy]

Nothings the matter, nothings to come, just being a nothing man in a nothing land.

 

[Bamagan]

Nothing to be done about it now though.

I guess we're in for a lot of sound and fury now, then. Oh well. I guess there's always tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...

 

[MillieDynamite]

In the Big House, every inmate is looking for the Big 0. See Women Unchained, Women Caged, Locked up, 17 & life: Jailbait, or any other such movie.

Nothing to be done about it now though.

 

[iwatchus]

nothings to come

I like the big O to come.

 

[TheRedLantern]

Marcus du Sautoy is a researcher who specializes in the history of 0

I just picked up "The Story of O" by Pauline Réage, which I assume is a pen name of Marcus du Sautoy. Looking forward to a nice read about the number 0.

Edit: Gonna read it with my 97 year old gram gram

 

[MrPixel]

And then there's the whole thing about "0" versus "null" in some programming languages. null≠0.

 

[TheRedLantern]

And then there's the whole thing about "0" versus "null" in some programming languages. null≠0.

Now things just got hot.

 

[StillStunned]

"Well I'm standing here, looking at you,
What do I see?
A big nothing threatening me!"
- "Antmusic", Adam Ant

 

[Rob_Royale]

My cat Dot was sitting on my lap last night, enjoying some skritches when the dog barked six feet away. Peroxide was involved.

 

[iwatchus]

My cat Dot was sitting on my lap last night, enjoying some skritches when the dog barked six feet away. Peroxide was involved.

I still have a visible scar on my thigh from where my cat was sleeping in my lap two months ago and thought something was coming. I think she dreamed it. She apparently needed to be 6 feet past me in that instant.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Cat, keeping her eye on me.