The History of 0

Abstract

This paper juxtaposes “histories” of zero in mathematics and literature. Without zero's introduction into Europe in the Renaissance, the modern world of calculus, set theory, international finance, “smart bombs” and digital globalization would have been impossible. The origin of zero, however, fades off into an uncertain past. Was zero invented or discovered by Babylonians, or Chaldeans, or Indians, or Greeks, or Spanish Arabs, or Mayans, or by all of these at different times and places? Scholars disagree. They agree, however, that zero, which is both a number and not a number, causes intractable problems for logic, for mathematics, and for set theory. Zero has been present in modernist literature too, sometimes as a theme, as in Borges or Svevo; sometimes, as in Shakespeare, Joyce, James, and George Eliot, in a way more integral to rhetorical form: that is, as a figure for the allegorical features of literary language.

Notes

Another name for this essay would be “Zero Minus Ex (0‐x); I call this essay “Zero Minus Ex (0‐x)” not only because of the aspects of the “exorbitant” or “excessive” in zero, but also because it is a truncated version of a longer essay published in Glossalalia: An Alphabet of Critical Keywords, ed. Julian Wolfreys (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003). Another, even longer, revised version has been published, with another essay, as Zero Plus One by the Biblioteca Javier Coy d'estudis nord‐americans of the Departament de Filologia Anglesa i Alemanya Universitat de València (2003). I am grateful for permission to reuse material from these other versions of my essay. I am grateful also for the opportunity to try out my ideas about zero at the 2003 meeting in Leeds of the International Association of Philosophy and Literature.