User:Peter Schmitt/Draft
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There are several popular books on (the history of) "zero" which make interesting reading but have to be taken with care as can be seen from the reviews.
- Robert Kaplan, The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000.
- Critically reviewed by:
- Philip J. Davis, Embedding Zero in Exposition, Book Review. SIAM News (September 17, 2000) [siam.org]
- Ivor Grattan-Guinness, Much ado about some thing, Book Review. Nature 401, 645-646 (14 October 1999) (doi:10.1038/44273) [nature.com]
- Andrew Leahy, The Mathematical Association of America. [maa.org]
- Brian Blank, Book review. The College Mathematics Journal, Vol.32 No.2, March 2001, 155-160. See pp. 158-160 [pdf]
- Keith Devlin, Natural History, Dec, 1999. [bnet]
- John Derbyshire, The conquering zero. October 1999. [newcriterion.com]
- Richard Pinch, Much ado about Nothing. Magazine issue 2228 (04 March 2000) [newscientist.com]
- J. Kingston Pierce, All for Naught. [January Magazine]
- Charles Seife, Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea. Viking Penguin, New York, 2000.
- Critically reviewed by:
- Brian Blank, Book review. The College Mathematics Journal, Vol.32 No.2, March 2001, 155-160. See pp. 157-158 [pdf]
- Steven G. Krantz, What's So Special About Zero? Book Review, SIAM News (September 17, 2000). [siam.org (pdf)])
- Keith Devlin, Natural History, Dec, 1999. [bnet]
- John D. Barrow, The Book of Nothing. Pantheon: 2001.
- Critically reviewed by:
- John O'Connor, Nothing to it! Book review. Nature 410, 748-749 (12 April 2001) (doi:10.1038/35071152) [nature.com]
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Martin Gardner, The Significance of ‘Nothing’, in: The Night is Large. (1996).
What is the origin of zero? How did we indicate nothingness before zero?
Scientific American (January 16, 2007), answer based on Kaplan's book (see below). ([Scientific American]
Bill Casselman, All for Nought. Feature column at [ams.org]
Gwalior in India The temple is dated to 876 A. D What the Gwalior tablet shows is that by 876 A. D. our current place-value system with a base of 10 had become part of popular culture in at least one region of India. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%