Amir D. Aczel (1950–2015)

There's little question that the use of positional notation for numbers is one of the most useful human inventions. I mean, can you imagine trying to do calculus with Roman numerals? And in our modern mathematical notation, the most important idea is that of the zero - representing nothing!

Sometime in the early Renaissance, these concepts migrated to Europe through the Arabic world, initially through the work of Fibonacci. And the merchants and business people loved the efficiency of show more accounting using this new system.

What we don't know is who invented our numbers, especially introducing the concept of zero. Many think they came out of the East - India, or perhaps the Middle East - hence we call them Hindu-Arabic numerals. But the evidence for this is skimpy and the history of our numerals isn't known. Finding Zero is Aczel's memoir of his years-long search for that evidence. It's well-written, and an interesting story. I wish Aczel had given us more on ancient numbering systems and arithmetic - what was there was great, but more would have been better!

Recommended, even for the non-mathematically inclined. The level of expertise needed is absolutely minimal while still a fun story! show less

"Beautiful" is not a word I would typically apply to a book that refers so often to topics that I try to avoid: topics like mathematics and quantum physics. But Amir Aczel is such a graceful writer, one able to translate profound ideas in to simple concepts for the average reader (like me) that "beautiful" is, indeed, the word that comes to mind.
I love that the premise of this book is not that God exists; rather, the author explains how there is really nothing to show that God does NOT show more exist. His tools are math, science, logic and philosophy, and his reasoning is brilliant.
There is nothing sappy about this book, as a reader might have feared (justifiably, considering what's typically out there on the topic of God's existence). Instead, Aczel is a very straightforward writer and thinker.
I checked this book out of the library and liked it so much I immediately ordered my own copy to keep. show less

I really wanted to like this book. Aczel is a most engaging author when discussing the history of mathematics in the west - his prose shines, his explanations are lucid, and his enthusiasm infectious. His description of a seminal childhood event that led him to his love of mathematics and numbers is simply charming.

But the book falls apart whenever it turns to its main thesis - that the concept of zero was invented in the east. For one, Aczel wishes he were living in a Dan Brown potboiler, show more with the result that readers have to deal with far too much overblown prose for situations that really aren't that momentous. Second, he suffers from a case of Orientalism that wouldn't be out of place in the Victorian Era. I'd be hard pressed to think of another book authored in the 21st century that relied so heavily on (inaccurate and offensive) tropes of the "Eastern mind." This is patronizing both to Asians (witness his repeated astonishment that the continent's pre-modern peoples noticed basic phenomenal characteristics of the world such as the four basic elements and eight cardinal directions--Well done, brown people!) and Caucasians, whom he paints as being spiritually incapable of envisioning concepts such as infinity or zero. There may be something to his thesis that religious philosophy led to the creation of the concept of zero, but the way he cherry picks history to fit his preferred interpretation - that this could only occur in Asia, because Buddhism - makes it appear more crackpot than it may, in fact, be.

The entire house of cards comes tumbling down in the final 60 pages, which are devoted to a hamhanded character assassination of an Italian archaeologist to whom he mentions his find, and who--the horror!--has the temerity to recognize and share his enthusiasm for it. Cue page upon page of handwringing in which Aczel impugns her competence, her motives, and her integrity. Why is she so eager to study the artifact, he asks over and over. Clearly nefarious motives are at work! Or, more likely, the archaeologist was simply eager to apply her expertise to an interesting artifact that Aczel--an author of pop science books about mathematics--is unqualified to examine or preserve. His protestations might have been slightly more convincing had he, at any point in the narrative, outlined a potential trajectory for the artifact once he located it, but it's clear he never thought it through that far.

It's also clear he wants readers to sympathize with him, but his juvenile nastiness just makes him come off like a dick. Por ejemplo: "As if to taunt me (or so I imagined) she sent me messages...from time to time, describing what she was doing with the inscription. 'My students and I have just completed a 3-D study of [the artifact],' she wrote. ... I tried to assess the danger. What was [she] after?" I dunno, dude. Maybe a fellow academic to geek out with?

Final verdict: Finding Zero is readable, and quite enjoyable when Aczel's discussing the history of mathematics in the west. But he's far too enamored of his far-too-underdeveloped thesis concerning mathematics in the east to be enjoyable, let alone credible. This, combined with the pettiness of the book's conclusion, makes Finding Zero a library loaner for anyone considering reading it. I imagine Aczel's other books on mathematics might be more grounded, and thus better written and more enjoyable, than this offering. show less

Six-word review: The drive to seek, find, know.

Extended review:

(An Early Reviewer review)

This is not a book about mathematics. It's the story of a quest, of a man on a mission to satisfy a personal desire as much as to solve a great mystery of the past.

An all-consuming question about the history of human intelligence and abstract thought drives the author's lifelong search. His goal is to locate the birthplace of the concept of number and especially of the number zero. For Aczel, this is not show more some bodiless mental pursuit but a thrilling intellectual and geographical quest for a historical moment of invention that stands alone among peak human achievements.

That the odyssey is a personal one is made plain by the structure of the book. It begins and ends with the author's connection to the man who set him on his course, a man whose own history lies in the shadows but whose enthusiasm for the ideas behind the numbers that are so familiar to us excited and inspired a young boy. In the course of his search for the ancient roots of mathematical understanding, the author sees links to religion and philosophy and especially to Buddhism, with its core concept of emptiness--shunyata. Here he refers to a passage in Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh's writing about the Buddhist idea of the void:

As I concentrated on these notions, I came to believe that I could even read the quoted verses above as saying: existence = 1, nonexistence = -1, and emptiness = 0. Emptiness was the door from nonexistence to existence, in the same way that zero was the conduit [sic] from positive to negative numbers, one set being a perfect geometrical reflection of the other along the number line. (page 106)

If this is mathematics, it's also mysticism; and the overlapping and merging of arbitrarily separated disciplines is one of the themes of this book.

It's not the discoveries but the passion that is the subject of this account; not the numbers but the zeal. An individual commits himself to a goal, and an ineffable something in him impels him to persevere and not give up. His hunger for the answer draws him on; his persistence and unflagging excitement infuse his tale, and that's what draws us on as readers.

If his ascription of supernatural significance to such things as the label number of the sought-after archeological artifact ventures over into woo woo territory, well, that might be one of the reasons for a moderate rating. That his approach and his narrative are not strictly rational simply confirms that this is not a book about math. show less