I did a Google search for "zero" looking for a good graphic. "Zero" produced 252,000,000 hits. Two hundred and fifty two million. That's a lot of hits for nothing.
Those who read my earlier post, "Numerical thinking..." may be reaching for a calculator. Well done. For those who didn't, it would take me just under eight years to visit every one of those sites, one per second, 24/7. So I visited them all and none had a good graphic.
The correct graphic is not a graphic of nothing, but is no graphic at all. I hate that.
This is interesting - an African Grey parrot named Alex gave consistent, verifiable evidence of its ability to grasp the concept of "zero" as being meaningful in itself, not just as identifying an absence. I went out and bought an African Grey parrot right after I learned that. I explained to my wife that the parrot was a Christmas gift for my dog Vinnie, and she laughed in a way that said, "I'm not stupid, but I love you... Maybe I am stupid." She's very loving, I think.
So I have this African Grey parrot and I have a concept of zero. How to move my concept to the parrot? There's the rub. Along with, why bother? Because if I can teach it, I will know it, and right now I feel like I'm just faking that I know it. This is why I teach - so that I can know.
The direct face of zero is nothingness. Multiply any number, no matter how huge, by zero and you wind up with nothing. Zero is the great destroyer. The underbelly of zero is infinity. Divide any number by zero and you get... well you don't actually get anything, but "not anything" in this case is the opposite of "nothing." Dividing by zero is asking the question, "How many groups of zero are there in this number?" You can't say zero, because obviously there are more than that. A million? More than that... A trillion? More than that... A really huge number of zeroes lie inside every number, an infinitude of them.
Where's that damned parrot?
Those who read my earlier post, "Numerical thinking..." may be reaching for a calculator. Well done. For those who didn't, it would take me just under eight years to visit every one of those sites, one per second, 24/7. So I visited them all and none had a good graphic.
The correct graphic is not a graphic of nothing, but is no graphic at all. I hate that.
This is interesting - an African Grey parrot named Alex gave consistent, verifiable evidence of its ability to grasp the concept of "zero" as being meaningful in itself, not just as identifying an absence. I went out and bought an African Grey parrot right after I learned that. I explained to my wife that the parrot was a Christmas gift for my dog Vinnie, and she laughed in a way that said, "I'm not stupid, but I love you... Maybe I am stupid." She's very loving, I think.
So I have this African Grey parrot and I have a concept of zero. How to move my concept to the parrot? There's the rub. Along with, why bother? Because if I can teach it, I will know it, and right now I feel like I'm just faking that I know it. This is why I teach - so that I can know.
The direct face of zero is nothingness. Multiply any number, no matter how huge, by zero and you wind up with nothing. Zero is the great destroyer. The underbelly of zero is infinity. Divide any number by zero and you get... well you don't actually get anything, but "not anything" in this case is the opposite of "nothing." Dividing by zero is asking the question, "How many groups of zero are there in this number?" You can't say zero, because obviously there are more than that. A million? More than that... A trillion? More than that... A really huge number of zeroes lie inside every number, an infinitude of them.
Where's that damned parrot?
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