Wouldnt it be best to think of it more as the representation of the absence of something?
Comment on Zero to hero
moon@lemmy.cafe 6 months ago
How can nothing be a number
StuffYouFear@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
Hi, mathematician here. What’s a “number”?
NoFood4u@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
Because a number isn’t just a representation of a size or amount - that’s called a scalar. A number can also represent a point in a space, the label of a vertex on a graph and probably some other things too.
baseless_discourse@mander.xyz 6 months ago
BTW, 0 is typically considered a scalar. As in mathematics scalar is typically defined as a field, which would require a additive identity, namely 0.