Aug 10 2022 - From Zero to Nothing

 

Did you know that the Egyptians counted in base 12 and not our base 10?  If I knew this, it has been lost until yesterday when I found out how our day became 24 hours. They counted their knuckles on their fingers and used their thumbs as placeholders.  That's how we got to our units of time - the Egyptians divided the day into smaller parts based on the interval between sunrise and sunset.  Using their duodecimal (base 12) and sexagesimal (base 60) systems, here we are. Wikipedia says that historically units of time in many civilizations are duodecimal.   We know how common twelve is - 12 inches in an imperial foot, 12 troy ounces in a troy pound, 12 items in a dozen.  It says that the number twelve is a superior highly composite number and superior to base-10.   So how did we come to using base-10? It comes down to writing down large numbers. Early number systems have one thing in common. They require someone to write down many symbols to record a single number and create new symbols for each larger number. The Ancient Egyptians represented 300 with three coiled ropes.  Positional systems allow for the reuse of the same symbols.  It was Indian mathematicians in the 7th Century who perfected the decimal positional system.  The big breakthrough was the number 0.   That started with the Sumerian culture 5,000 years ago, moved on to the Babylonian empire, and then to India via the Greeks.   Zero and nothingness became a big deal in the 20th century even though the philosophical notion of nothingness was developed very early in Indian thought and in cosmogonical myths - "And the earth was without form, and void."   The 19th and 20th century explored nothingness at great length. On the one hand, zero is a bona fide cardinal number, yet on the other it is linked to ideas of nothingness and non-being.  How curious this seems that the philosophical aspect arises: our understanding of zero is tied to questions concerning the status of non-being.  Where would we be philosophically if we'd continued in the duodecimal system?  The Egyptians believed in everlasting joy rather than death.  So I don't think they worried about nothingness. In fact their gods imbued every day with meaning and were considered one's close friends and benefactors.  No existentialism for them. I seem to have endless pictures of tree bark.  Here's a sample collage.

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There's Nothing for you, really

Is 'nothing' a negative?  Don't we think of 'anything' as positive?  That seems so interesting to me.  The definition of nothing is:  not anything, no single thing. However, when I compare these two sentences: "There is nothing for you".  vs.  "There isn't anything for you". There seems to be a subtle difference.  The first sentence could be continued with "and don't check with me again", while the second sentence could be continued with "and check with me again later". Can you imagine learning a new language such as English with these kinds of distinctions? Here is a quote from Richard Rodgers: "There isn't anything I wanted to do that I haven't.  At the same time there isn't anything I've ever done that I didn't want to do better".   So on to the opposite of nothing - something.   Here are two funny sights from my Toronto trip a few weeks ago.  First the delivery truck of parking machines.  The second shows two men doing some measuring with what looked like a camera, but is an instrument to measure speed.  I noticed them because of the running, jumping and various athletic activities.

News About Nothing

Seeing Nothing was a great experience for millions yesterday. The headlines from yesterday's eclipse were varied.  These come from the UK Telegraph. Total solar eclipse sweeps across the US Donald Trump mocked for looking directly at the Sun Moon trolls sun on Twitter Britons left underwhelmed by partial solar eclipse Nasa Moon, NASA's official Twitter account about Earth's Moon, said: "HA HA HA I've blocked the Sun! Make way for the Moon. £SolarEclipse2017" while Hopkinsville Police in Kentucky, which saw solar enthusiasts descend on the town, tweeted "Please DO NOT call 911 just because your Wi-Fi service is not working." The headlines today include how to tell if there's been retinal damage after watching the solar eclipse.  Today's picture was taken at the new Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines - an art installation at the top of the stairs.