Much Ado About Nothing

The article “Much Ado About Nothing, http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4623 “ was reporting an ongoing fight over nothing between prominent physicists and philosophers. In addition to the reporting, the author has a strong position on this issue with his statement:

      “How can you get any sillier than arguing over nothing? … It’s kind of like a segment of Dumb (a multiverse explains everything!) vs. Dumber (bringing religion into it, “pale, small, silly, nerdy”).”

I do think that nothing or nothingness has very rich internal structure. It will take a few posts to discuss it. Today, I will start with the mathematics.

1. In arithmetic, nothing (or nothingness) is represented by 0 (zero), 

                        Nothing = 0

2. In mathematics, infinity is the consequence of nothing,

                        Infinity = 1/nothing

In mathematics, we can get rid of many things but not nothing (the zero). Without nothing (the zero), most of the mathematics systems will collapse.  Furthermore, infinity has very rich mathematical significance. Arguing over nothing is a big science, much bigger than the Higgs and the whatnot.