Rating: 
Summary: Seems like a different book after chapter 6
Review: Without doubt, this book has one of the best "Chapter 5's" I've ever read. "Infinite Zeros and Infidel Mathematicians" is everything a reader could want in a book. Up to chapter 5, Seife has traced the history of zero and its appearance in European math systems, starting from its origins in the Middle East to its careening path eastward and westward. Chapters 0 and 1 are a bit plodding but 2-4 are more than adequate. Chapter 5, as well as Chapter 6, is wonderful-- this is where Seife speaks about how zero was essential for the scientific revolution in europe, with calculus, Newton, Leibniz, and Kepler. The discussions on L'Hopital's rule and fluxions are a little confusing, but their minor quibbles here. What makes these two chapters so useful is that Seife talks about all those weird mathematical problems with scary symbols and confusing references that we're all familiar with from math class, and does a really good job. He uses intuitive descriptions to make sense out of otherwise incomprehensible concepts-- a tangent, for example, is explained by pointing out how an object swung on a string, when released, flies in a tangent line to the string's curve, with the same going for a ball released by a pitcher moving an arm in an arc before releasing the baseball. Also useful is the explanation of the two foci of an ellipse, with the description of lines of light sent out from one focus ultimately reflecting and centering upon the next focus. I encountered all these concepts in math class and couldn't understand why they were important or what they meant, and Seife explains the origins of these problems, their importance, and how all those terms and equations came about. He makes the difficult seem intuitive. Even his tangents and side discussions, while occasionally distracting, are usually entertaining and fun in these chapters. I would've given the book 4 stars if it had stopped at Chapter 6, where Seife seems to be most on top of his material-- math, it's history, and the way it was changed when zero entered the picture. But the whole book is undone by the last three chapters. These are the ones that deal with physics and astrophysics, and the book just seems out of its element here. The last chapter, "Chapter Infinity-- End Time," has both a too-cute (to the point of being lame) title as well as a smorgasbord of confusing statements, weak logic, and unsubstantiated conclusions. The earlier two chapters aren't much better. They touch on a lot of subjects and do begin to explore them somewhat, but explain none of them very well. It's almost as if we're reading a different book by a different author after Chapter 6! Few things are more frustrating in a book than inconsistency like this. I'd get it for the first 6 chapters alone, but this seems to be a good example of the value of quitting while so far ahead in the project.
Rating:
Summary: Covers a lot of ground with little depth
Review: "Zero" is a potentially interesting book about a long-rejected mathematical concept that winds up reading like a bumpy subway ride. Seife's telling of the number's history is adequate, but the book begins to fizzle out about halfway through. There's a nice interlude on the way zero quickly changed mathematical theory and practice in the 1600s, with useful examples of how it's used to obtain a derivative. But when the book starts getting into the way that zero impacts not only modern mathematics but physics, it totally loses its audience. Seife almost sounds like someone wanting to be an oracle later in the book, and it gets to be irritating-- there are a lot of grandiose statements and specious bits of "wisdom" about zero and how it's changed the landscape of modern thought, with very little to back it up. Modern physical theories use limit functions an awful lot which involve extrapolations to zero, but they also use pi, the natural log, all kinds of physical constants with weird values-- in short, there are a lot of "special numbers" with interesting applications, but Seife loses touch with reality in the extent that he portrays zero as a sort of scholar's gold. The practical result is that the book falls apart into a rambling clutter of disjointed, unorganized statements and references, and the last couple chapters are almost a labor to sit and read.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent history of the zero, spoilt in parts
Review: Actually, 4 stars for the first half of the book, and 2 stars for the second half. The 1st half of the book was an excellent review of the history of numbers since the days of Babylon, through Egypt, Persia, Greece, India, Arabia, Rome etc. Very well researched and very well presented. Then after the Middle Ages something starts to go wrong. Seife seems to start throwing in anything he could think of that might remotely involve zero. Since 1 divide by 0 equals infinity, we started getting digressions about infinity. Some strange metaphysical musings started appearing, such as after describing the work of an Indian Mathematician, the chapter closed with "God was found in infinity - and in zero" -- huh? Siefe was (overly) diligent in explaining the square root of -1 before introducing the concept of 'i'. However, he was less diligent (as in not at all) in introducing 'e' and 'pi', but that didn't stop him from simply stating one of Euler's discoveries that "e raised to the power (i times pi) = -1". However for Siefe this wasn't good enough, because there's no zero - so he rephrased it as "e raised to the power (i times pi) + 1 = 0". And he didn't share the proof, but simply stated the equation in vacuo, so to speak. Similarly he then moved on to describe the Casimir effect (about the mutual attraction between 2 parallel plates in a vacuum). But this is a physical effect, not related to the history of the zero - but if a vacuum is a synonym for zero, then anything about vacuums is in scope. So we also move on to the speed of light, and works by Einstein & Maxwell, without a zero in sight? Finally in one of the appendices Siefe presents one of the more famous paradoxes which appears to prove that 1=0; but then he spoils it by extending the number theory to show that Winston Churchill was actually a Carrot (as in the vegetable)? A silly move which added nothing to the value of the exercise.
Rating:
Summary: Greater than fantastic! Infinitely great!
Review: This book was absolutely brilliant! It engaged me the entire time and I was fscinated at the paradoxes. It also inspired me to come up with my own paradoxes of zero!
Rating:
Summary: Any good books on zero out there?
Review: I read "The Nothing that is" a couple years ago as my introduction to the field of zero-ology and was disappointed. I've been hoping to find a solid, by-the-book yet interesting book on the zero topic and a colleague recommended this book as a substitute. Sadly, it too falls short of even basic expectations. The author seems to be more interested in hyping his topic rather than offering a simple and coherent look at how the number was gradually introduced and then outright adopted by western numeral systems. The book is filled with almost hyperventilating language about how important zero is and how it's the key to understanding everything from the functioning of modern computers to the shape of space. But the author doesn't do a good job of explaining why this is the case, even as he repeats the argument over and over again. The last couple chapters are especially a let-down. These were the ones I was most looking forward to because they get into the thinking about how zero figures into modern theories, but they seem to be shortened prematurely. Once again they shout their messages but don't back them up, and so leave a lot to be desired. So this book, like its predecessor, just doesn't tackle its subject well. If you're looking for a good popular math book out there, I'd recommend Eli Maor's "e-- the story of a number" to read instead.
Rating: 
Summary: A Thoughtful and Accessible Journey Into the Void of Zero
Review: The following is a review of the audio edition of ZERO: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A DANGEROUS IDEA as read by the author, Charles Seife Charles Seife's book, ZERO: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A DANGEROUS IDEA is just that - a biography or to be more technical, an essay detailing the history of the idea of zero. In Seife's hands, the protagonist makes its way through the history of humankind through today where we learn that the concept of zero is more than just a human construct but rather a feature of the universe that predates us and will certainly outlive us. Indeed, Seife credits zero as being the culprit for ending the universe. It is easy to write off as hyperbole the emphasis Seife places on the role of zero in our lives and it is easy to do so because we accept zero as a concept and, more importantly, use zero in our daily lives. In many ways, we spend our lives trying to avoid zero (i.e. zero dollars in your bank account; zero degrees celsius - cold; zero degrees fahrenheit - really cold; ground zero, etc.) However, in order to accept the true power of zero as Seife urges us to do, we must first abstract ourselves from our world which accepts zero and takes zero for granted and inhabit a world that rejects zero or otherwise refuses to acknowledge zero. Zero in our world provides valuable services and without zero, we would be without many of the advances of civilization. Seife also contributes much to Western Philosophy. Western Philosophy, as Seife points out, has not been receptive to zero. This was well documented by Seife in his depiction of the treatment of zero given to Aristotlean Philosophers. Seife is a very good reader. He articulates well and his inflections demonstrate real joy in reading his own work. Indeed, it sounds as if he is retelling his fondest story. The only complaint with his reading lies with his speed. Sometimes, he just speaks too rapidly. All in all, a highly recommended work.
Rating: 
Summary: From Simplicity to Ultimate Complexity
Review: I remember wondering about Xeno's paradox. Although the answer to why a man running against a turtle with a head start was intuitively reasonable to grasp and answer, one hesitates to articulate an answer effectively. The reason is that one has to accept the dictates of the thought experiment about the necessity of infinitely splitting the distance between the man and the tortiose --- and therefore the apparent certitude that the man can never catch up with the turtle. The reason is simple. Greeks rejected the entire notion of a zero. If you have no limit on a zero then you cannot delimit the thought experiment. This lack of zero, and, in the case of the Greeks, the absolute rejection of zero is the source of many stories. Seife starts with a historical view and the idea of zero. Where it came from, from its place as a place marker in counters (not really a zero as we understand it) to its use to signify nothing by the Indians (the first real inventors of the modern notion of zero) to the development of the Calculus by Leibnitz and Newton (and Newton's rejection of the zero -- although his notation included all the zeros, making it impossible to read for most modern mathemeticians). Latterly Seife relates the linkage between Infinity and Zero and explores the notion of black holes... It is really a nice mathematical smorgasbord. There are only a few equations and proofs in this book and is readily understandable for those with a high-school education. A good read.
Rating: 
Summary: Useful but needs to be toned down a bit
Review: I agree with previous reviewers in that this book goes way over the top in the extent that it talks up its subject. To be sure, the achingly-slow acceptance of zero into mathematics has been important for both math itself and for the branches of science that use it heavily-- calculus would have been impossible without it, not to mention the many branches of physics and engineering that depend on this field. But the author is too easily given to broad, overexcited statements about how zero is some kind of "open sesame" for currently unsolved problems of math and physics. Working with zeroes and infinities is essential for mathematicians these days, but there's nothing terrifically special conceptually about zero that sheds light on modern mysteries-- the zero number, at base, is primarily a tool for mathematicians and mathematical physicists, albeit an unusually useful one. Still, the book's section on limit calculation is much more in-depth and easy to grasp than in most textbooks-- when you get to the part about measurements for the cylindrical barrel, slow down and read carefully, because you'll be hard-pressed to find an explanation of integral calculus that's better than this.
Rating:
Summary: Not recommended
Review: This book was recommended to us as "ancillary reading" in Maths because it supposedly 1. would improve our understanding of how zero entered modern number systems and allowed for the foundations of calculus, and 2. help us to understand how the approaching-the-limit procedures basic to calculus are actually used in some applicable examples. It has done neither. The book jumps around far too much in its treatment of the history part. It would have better served its subject by more coherently examining how and why zero was initially left out and the practical reasons that it was let back into mathematics. The author seems to believe that there was some kind of philosophical conspiracy against the poor number among the Greeks, but the omission of zero from early number systems seems to result more from the fact that early civilisations did not find it useful in their daily affairs, except insofar as the Babylonians used it as a place-holder. Its acceptance later had more to do with its utility to merchants than to a philosophical "awakening" as the author seems to believe, and he should have given more attention to this commercial aspect. The second part of the book, which considers the uses of zero in practical mathematics and technical fields, suffers from the same flaw that hampers the first part. The author is far too enamoured of zero as a sort of semi-philosophical keystone and he fails to explain why zero's inclusion has been truly useful. He becomes self-indulgent in the extent to which he admires the number and gets drawn so astray in the admiration of his subject that a dispassionate reader is left wondering what his point is. The latter pages are an especial let-down because the author briefly talks about some interesting subjects in physics and astronomy without addressing them in proper depth or making sense out of them. Disappointing overall.
Rating:
Summary: Good, interesting book!
Review: This is a two part book where the first half is about the history of zero and it's view through civilizations over time, and the second part is about the scientifical applications in modern physics and mathematics. It is well written and explain things in a clear and direct way, however it does not go very deep. Overall: GOOD
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