Finding Zero, Amir D. Aczel
Finding Zero, Amir D. Aczel
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Finding Zero
A Mathematician’s Odyssey to Uncover the Origins of Numbers

Author: Amir D. Aczel

Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki

Unabridged: 5 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/06/2015


Synopsis

The story of how we got our numbers—told through one mathematician's journey to find zeroThe invention of numerals is perhaps the greatest abstraction the human mind has ever created. Virtually everything in our lives is digital, numerical, or quantified. The story of how and where we got these numerals, which we so depend on, has for thousands of years been shrouded in mystery. Finding Zero is an adventure-filled saga of Amir Aczel's lifelong obsession: to find the original sources of our numerals. Aczel has doggedly crisscrossed the ancient world, scouring dusty, moldy texts, cross examining so-called scholars who offered wildly differing sets of facts, and ultimately penetrating deep into a Cambodian jungle to find a definitive proof. Here, he takes the reader along for the ride.The history begins with the early Babylonian cuneiform numbers, followed by the later Greek and Roman letter numerals. Then Aczel asks the key question: where do the numbers we use today, the so-called Hindu-Arabic numerals, come from? It is this search that leads him to explore uncharted territory, to go on a grand quest into India, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and ultimately into the wilds of Cambodia. There he is blown away to find the earliest zero—the keystone of our entire system of numbers—on a crumbling, vine-covered wall of a seventh-century temple adorned with eaten-away erotic sculptures. While on this odyssey, Aczel meets a host of fascinating characters: academics in search of truth, jungle trekkers looking for adventure, surprisingly honest politicians, shameless smugglers, and treacherous archaeological thieves—who finally reveal where our numbers come from.

Author Bio

Amir D. Aczel is the author of fourteen books, including the international bestseller Fermat's Last Theorem, The Riddle of the Compass, and The Mystery of the Aleph. An internationally known writer of mathematics and science, he is a visiting scholar in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University, an affiliate professor at the University Of New Hampshire, a research fellow at Boston University, and a Guggenheim fellow.

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