Is Zero Even? - Numberphile
A bit about zero - including a discussion of its even-ness!? More links & stuff in full description below ↓↓↓ Featuring Dr James Grime (https://twitter.com/jamesgrime) and Professor...
==========
JAMES GRIME: 0.That's our friend.Yes.To a mathematician this is a number.But it wasn't always obvious.ROGER BOWLEY: Math existed to do financial transactions, tosell sheep, to buy copper things, whatever.And you would use coins.And there would be values to the coins.So you would say this costs 5 pounds 20shillings, or whatever.You don't do any trading with the number 0.I've got no sheep here.Oh, I'm gonna buy no sheep, I'll give you no pounds.It doesn't make any sense.So there was no need for shopkeepers toinvent the number 0.JAMES GRIME: They had the idea of 5 cows.But the idea of 5, not so much.The idea of 5-ness they didn't quite understand.So a number like 0, which is the absence of--well, whatever, cows,...
==========
JAMES GRIME: 0.That's our friend.Yes.To a mathematician this is a number.But it wasn't always obvious.ROGER BOWLEY: Math existed to do financial transactions, tosell sheep, to buy copper things, whatever.And you would use coins.And there would be values to the coins.So you would say this costs 5 pounds 20shillings, or whatever.You don't do any trading with the number 0.I've got no sheep here.Oh, I'm gonna buy no sheep, I'll give you no pounds.It doesn't make any sense.So there was no need for shopkeepers toinvent the number 0.JAMES GRIME: They had the idea of 5 cows.But the idea of 5, not so much.The idea of 5-ness they didn't quite understand.So a number like 0, which is the absence of--well, whatever, cows,...
