An intriguing look at the history of a special number, zero. Written in an easily digestible form it gives a great overview over the clash of philosophies which happened around zero and what effects of them we still face today. Not only for science and math buffs! ( )

I was initially skeptical about this book, because in the early chapters I felt like Seife sometimes presented questionable anecdotes as fact. Plus, for the chapters that I knew the most about, I lamented the lack of footnotes, which isn't really a fair criticism of a popular science work. The book quickly won me over, though, and I often found myself reluctant to put it down. The story presented here is about much more than math: there's history, philosophy, religion, and modern physics too. Much of the material was already familiar to me, but Seife brought it all together into a satisfying overview of the evolution of western thought. I would recommend this even to people who don't particularly like math; it's not very technical and is full of information that would be interesting to anyone. ( )

Seife's first book covers a lot of ground in relating the history of zero, but he does an excellent job of explaining things clearly and well. ( )

A fascinating book about nothing! Read it a long, long time ago, but may re-read when I finish "One to Nine: The Inner Life of Numbers."

Starting with the Egyptian and Greek geometricians Seife relates the history of a number with very peculiar properties and its polar opposite, infinity. That makes this a book about nothing and everything. He uses it to mathematically prove that Sir Winston Churchill was a carrot and includes instructions on how to “make your own wormhole time machine.” For the most part he uses drawings rather than mathematical formulae to illustrate concepts, making this a very accessible book for the non-mathematicians among us. ( )