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| In Our Time
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| | | The big ideas which form the intellectual agenda of our age are illuminated by some of the best minds. Melvyn Bragg and three guests investigate the history of ideas and debate their application in modern life. | | | | | LISTEN AGAIN | | | |
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| | | | | "I'm fascinated by the fact that we live in a time when so many people are doing fantastic work, and thinking in areas which it's not remotely possible for me to keep up with & and these people are prepared to talk about it. They're prepared to come on In Our Time and other programmes on Radio 4 and try and talk to the rest of us ..." |
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Shakespeare’s King Lear warned, “Nothing will come of nothing”. The poet and priest John Donne said from the pulpit, “The less anything is, the less we know it: how invisible, unintelligible a thing is nothing”, and the English monk and historian William of Malmesbury called them “dangerous Saracen magic”. They were all talking about zero, the number or symbol that had been part of the mathematics in the East for centuries but was finally taking hold in Europe.
What was it about zero that so repulsed their intellects? How was zero invented? And what role does zero play in mathematics today?
Contributors
Robert Kaplan, co-founder of the Maths Circle at Harvard University and author of The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero (Oxford University Press, 2001)
Ian Stewart, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick
Lisa Jardine, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London
Robert Kaplan is holding Maths Circle demonstrations on the following dates:
Edinburgh: 20 May, 9 June, 24 June: St George's School, with students as well from Flora Stevenson and Edinburgh Academy (ages 8 to 10). Discussion with teachers, followed by one and one-half hour class (discussion with teachers and students at end of final session).
Bath: 29 June: A day of demonstrations and discussions, hosted by the Bath University College School of Education, in conjunction with the University of Bristol.
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