The oddity of the zero

I was in bed thinking this morning, and I suddenly remembered Charles Osgood, who was a radio personality in the days before TV. Some of the older readers might remember him. I recalled one particularly clever topic of his.

I’ll try to tell it now.

The odd part about zero is that it represents nothing. If you look at a ruler, the first number is one, but all the marks for numbers less than one are present, but there is no zero printed there.

It would look funny to have a half of a circle on the ruler, and the other half off in thin air.

Zero is a number, but if you put 6 zeros down in a row, you still have nothing. If you put a one in front of the zeros, you suddenly have a million of nothing. Zero means nothing, but we cannot live without it.

God bless Charles Osgood, wherever he his.

This is Dr. Ray, signing off until later.