Charles Seife is a correspondent for Science, a London--based international weekly science magazine. He has
written for Scientific American, The Economist, Wired UK, The Sciences, and numerous other publications. He has
a masters degree in mathematics from Yale.
Review
"Lively and lucid ... the equivalent of an intellectual detective story.... Zero is really something."
--The Washington Post
"A stunning chronicle."
--U.S. News and World Report
"Entertainingly traces the history of numbers from 30,000 years ago ... down to the role that zero plays in
contemporary cosmological theory ... after finishing, his readers will feel they've accomplished a considerable
something."
--The New York Times
Submitted by Publisher July, 2001
Summary
The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off
heretics. Today, zero lies at the heart of one of the biggest scientific controversies of all time, the quest for
the theory of everything. Zero follows the number from its birth as an Eastern philosophical concept to its struggle
for acceptance in Europe and its apotheosis as the mystery of the black hole.
Elegant, witty, and utterly fascinating, Zero takes us from Aristotle to superstring theory by way of Pythagoras,
Descartes, the Kabbalists, and Einstein. It is a compelling look at the strangest number in the universe--and one
of the greatest paradoxes of human thought.
