Zero is powerful because it is infinity’s twin. They are equal and opposite, yin and yang. They are equally paradoxical and troubling. The biggest questions in science and religion are about nothingness and eternity, the void and the infinite, zero… — Charles Seife Copy Share Image
“This is the definition of the infinite: it is something that can stay the same size even when you subtract from it.” — Charles Seife Copy Share Image
“A bad idea, a wrong piece of information, a digital brain-altering virus can spread at the speed of light through the internet and quickly… — Charles Seife Copy Share Image
“The key to a black hole's strange properties is the way it curves space-time. A black hole takes up no space at all, but… — Charles Seife Copy Share Image
“In string theory, zero has been banished from the universe; there is no such thing as zero distance or zero time. This solves all… — Charles Seife Copy Share Image
“Zero and infinity are eternally locked in a struggle to engulf all the numbers. Like a Manichaean nightmare, the two sit on opposite poles… — Charles Seife Copy Share Image
“Skinnerian conditioning, crossed with social pressure, is now an ever-present invisible hand that tries to manipulate all of your actions on the internet. This… — Charles Seife Copy Share Image
“In 1933, the Indian Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar realized that the Pauli exclusion principle had only a limited ability to fight against the squeeze of gravity.… — Charles Seife Copy Share Image
“We tend to shy away from data that challenges our assumptions, that erodes our preconceptions. Getting rid of our wrong ideas is a painful… — Charles Seife Copy Share Image
“Banishing zero also solves the infinity problems in general relativity. If you imagine a black hole as a string, no longer do objects fall… — Charles Seife Copy Share Image
“With news and data that is tailored to our prejudices, we deprive ourselves of true information. We wind up wallowing in our own false… — Charles Seife Copy Share Image
“Digital information has an unbelievably high R0 [basic reproductive rate], and this means that it's hard to stop once it emerges. It spreads from… — Charles Seife Copy Share Image
“Christianity initially rejected zero, but trade would soon demand it. The man who reintroduced zero to the West was Leonardo of Pisa. The son… — Charles Seife Copy Share Image
“Zero dwells at the juxtaposition of quantum mechanics and relativity; zero lives where the two theories meet, and zero causes the two theories to… — Charles Seife Copy Share Image
“Though the Casimir force-a mysterious, phantom force exerted by nothing at all-seems like science fiction, it exists. It is a tiny force and very… — Charles Seife Copy Share Image
“Bad information is a disease that attacks the brain. It messes with your head, making you do things that you shouldn't, causing you to… — Charles Seife Copy Share Image
“In the battle between Kronecker and Cantor, Cantor would ultimately prevail. Cantor's theory would show that Kronecker's precious integers-and even the rational numbers-were nothing… — Charles Seife Copy Share Image