(I have always been fascinated by the concept of numbers and
how they influence and identify language. I believe the romance
started after reading a book, the exact title of which I forget.
From what I recall it was “Language, Numbers and the Mind” or
something like that. Over the coming months I intend to indulge
in a flight of fancy about the numbers 0 to 10.)
No matter what you call it: goose egg, duck (as in cricket), love
(as in tennis) Ciphra (Latin), Babu (Hausa), Nula(Czech), Sifr
(Pushto), Meithen(Greek), Noll (Swedish), Shunya (Sanskrit) or
Zero , it means the same thing—nada,zilch, zip,naught. Nothing.
You put a cardinal number after it, zero spurns it with the
hauteur of a dowager. But you put it behind and it is an entirely
different matter. It gains importance and strength as though
through some osmotic process. More zeros mean more power,
which increases exponentially. A lowly number one with just five
zeroes after it takes on an entirely different character with the
addition of one more shunya, babu, ciphra or whatever.
For some people adding another zero is not all that difficult.
There is a Spanish guy called Nadal, who instead of bull fighting
plays with a ball, which he hits with a paddle called a racket. This
is the only thing he does. Two weeks ago he spent seven days
hitting the ball and earned over 3 million dollars. That is 3
followed by 6 zeros. His total worth is reported to be 80 million.
You take one zero out, and he instantly becomes poorer. Take
out six more and he becomes destitute. Such is the power of
zero!
Computer programmers are virtually impotent without zero.
Computers are full of zillions of numbers—lots and lots of ones
and zeros. When you type the letter ”A”, the computer
representation is 0100001. I don’t understand this. I wonder
how many zeros and ones are required to represent this article!
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