Dr James Anderson, from the University of Reading's computer science department, claims to have defined what it means to divide by zero. It's so simple, he claims, that he's even
taught it to high school students [via Digg]. You just have to work with a new number he calls
Nullity (RealPlayer video). According to Anderson's site
The Book of Paragon, the creation, innovation, or discovery of nullity is a step toward describing a "perspective simplex, or perspex [ . . . ] a simple physical thing that is both a mind and a body." Anderson claims that Nullity permits the definition of
transreal arithmetic (pdf), a "total arithmetic . . . with no arithmetical exceptions," thus removing what the fictional dialogue
No Zombies, Only Feelies? identifies as the "homunculus problem" in mathematics: the need for human intervention to sort out "corner cases" which are not defined.
posted by treepour
on Dec 7, 2006 -
63 comments
The Zero Saga contains a great deal of information about the concept of zero, and its relation to other numbers and concepts in mathematics. It was linked in
Good Math, Bad Math; which contains a variety of other informative articles on the
numbers that capture our
imaginations.
(Note: You may want to skip past part 4 of the Zero Saga, as it contains replies to the site, and as such should probably be at the bottom of the page. But, to compensate, the comments on Good Math are better than most blogs I've read.)
posted by Eideteker
on Aug 3, 2006 -
11 comments
Halo Zero. The Fall of Reach, old-school style. Some plucky French coders have borrowed a page from
Codename: Gordon, the side-scrolling
homage to Half-Life. As a result, Master Chief and his cohorts are now fighting the Covenant in 16-bit, 2D graphics. PC download only - though Mac owners at least have
Boot Camp to avoid waiting for an OS X port.
via Aeropause
posted by Smart Dalek
on Jul 7, 2006 -
9 comments
