Serious thread: Is 0 a number?

[D3ads]

Recently this debate came up on another forum, so if you feel that this makes me stupid then fine BUT take note that this is not something that I alone share, some of my friends in real life also think this way too.

Simple question is 0 a number? My answer, no. Why? Because it is nothing. When you count from 1 upto 10, do you start at 0? No. If you do, you're weird.. everyone's different sure, but you're still weird. Most people start counting 1, 2, 3, 4 to 10.

With me? Great.

1 apple is 1 apple, 2 apples are 2 apples, 0 apples is nothing, nada, zilch. You can't give someone 0 apples, because 0 isn't a number, it equates to jack shit. In this sense you can also possibly argue that 1 - 1 = 1, because 0 doesn't exist, You have 1 apple, you take away 1 apple and you stilll have 1 apple. I guess that's for another thread though.

This is my theory, if I am truly the only one here who thinks this way then feel free to laugh and redicule me but in theory it makes sense, no?

[kleinluka]

well a quantity of 0 is still a quantity even if it the quantity is "nothing".

[Minos]

tl;dr

[ShaDoW]

Of course its a number. Zero indicates that you have no items.

"1 apple is 1 apple, 2 apples are 2 apples, 0 apples is nothing, nada, zilch. You can't give someone 0 apples."

You can't give someone 0 apples, sure. But that doesn't mean its impossible for someone to have 0 apples.

Numbers aren't about "possessing" something, numbers can be both positive and negative. For example, its perfectly possible for the weather to be 0 degrees Celsius or below.

Your logic about 1-1=1 apple doesn't make any sense to me either, sadly. If there is one apple (1) and you remove it (1-1) then there are no apples (1-1=0).

[Thrik]

Klein wins the thread. To bolster the point though, '0' as in 'zero' is the first of the 10 digits in the Arabic numeral system that most of us use. In the technical sense it's inarguably a number.

[Erratic]

But can you quantify love?

hold me

[Sentura]

0 is a number, NaN is not a number. in maths and computing, 0 comes before one as an logical OFF state, however if there indeed is nothing, the clarification NULL would be used. 0 is still something in that it still has a property as a number. only nothing can be entirely nothing, without having any other properties.

[JohnC]

Thinking back to high school, zero is technically a number, but there's several kinds of numbers.

There were rational numbers, real numbers, irrational numbers, and digits. I know it was a digit, might have been a real number too.

[e-freak]

no 0 zero is NOT a number. infact 0 is a scale point but not a number it self... well I just woke up and I may remember this wrong :S

[Thrik]

I think it's quite clear that there is no single answer to this question because it's considered differently by different schools of thought.

For every maths boffin that comes in and starts talking about nulls and scales, all I have to do is point out that '0' is an Arabic numeral and thus is inarguably a number in that sense of the word.

[Sentura]

i argued that 0 was a number in that it is "nothing" with the property of a number. this isn't so much about math as it is logic.

[Bic-B@ll]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero

0 (zero) is both a number and the numerical digit used to represent that number in numerals.

i dont think it was ever a question

[BaRRaKID]

Definitely a number, for at least tree reasons:

1- The numeric system that we use is called the decimal system, meaning that there are 10 different symbols that can represent every number inside that system, these symbols are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. For this same reason we can say that F (for example) is also a number, if you are referring to the Hexadecimal system that uses 16 symbols (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F).

2- The symbols that represent the Arabic numbers (the ones that we use) where created by making geometric figures with the corresponding number of angles (1 has one angle, 2 has two angles, etc) in which "0" represents the absence of angles that being the reason why it is represented by a circle. It's easier to see this in the following image (count the dots on each figure):

http://img161.imageshack.us/my.php?image=arabicde9.jpg

3- Given the fact that we have negative and positive numbers, if 0 wasn't a number then 1-1 would be equal to -1 instead of 0, which by rules of arithmetics and common sense we know it's not true. Using an analogy If you buy a pie and eat it you end up with "zero pie", if zero wasn't a number you would be owing the baker one pie.

[kleinluka]

barrakid wins the thread.

[twiz]

Definitely a number, for at least tree reasons:

1- The numeric system that we use is called the decimal system, meaning that there are 10 different symbols that can represent every number inside that system, these symbols are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. For this same reason we can say that F (for example) is also a number, if you are referring to the Hexadecimal system that uses 16 symbols (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F).

2- The symbols that represent the Arabic numbers (the ones that we use) where created by making geometric figures with the corresponding number of angles (1 has one angle, 2 has two angles, etc) in which "0" represents the absence of angles that being the reason why it is represented by a circle. It's easier to see this in the following image (count the dots on each figure):

http://img161.imageshack.us/my.php?image=arabicde9.jpg

3- Given the fact that we have negative and positive numbers, if 0 wasn't a number then 1-1 would be equal to -1 instead of 0, which by rules of arithmetics and common sense we know it's not true. Using an analogy If you buy a pie and eat it you end up with "zero pie", if zero wasn't a number you would be owing the baker one pie.