Wow! It is cold today. Just got back from the store. Nice to be inside.
The hawk is gone. I guess there were no little birds here and it decided to hunt elsewhere,
I'm still filling my head with nothing. The Greeks seem to have had a rough time with the concept of a void. They couldn't admit that nothing existed, because if it existed it would be something and if it is somehing then it can't be nothing.
The Indians appear to have been quite comfortable with the concepts of nothing and infinity. They established the idea that 0 times a number is 0. And a number divided by zero is infinity. If we subtract infinity from infinity we still have infinity.
In 820 AD, Al-Kharizmi from whom we derive the term algorithm established the practice of writhing numerals in groups of three seperated by comas as in: 1,000,000.
Gilbert of Aurillac (945-1003), elected Pope Sylvester II in 999, was the first euopean to use the Indo-Arab system outside of Spain. Remember that the Arabs controlled Spain and used the Indo-Arab number system.
2 comments:
Those Greeks. Always thinking too hard.
Is zero about existence and non-existence or about presence and absence?
-MJR
The Indians would say yes to both.
The Greeks couldn't figure it out either way.
Cool picture of "damselfish"
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