Subject: Re: [HM] A question around zero
From: John Harper (John.Harper@MCS.VUW.AC.NZ)
Date: Tue Jan 25 2000 - 17:52:53 EST
On Tue, 25 Jan 2000, Don Cook wrote:
> 1. Should we be having this debate in the year 2000 on whether zero
> is even or not. In the set of integers, it is! Non mathematicians have trouble
> with the concept that not all numbers are cardinal numbers. Sometimes they
> will accept zero as a temperature between -1 and 1. A George Carlin joke
> that I use to explain the difference between 'zero' and 'none' is, "Suppose
> when you woke up the weather person said, 'It's no degrees outside'. What
> would you wear?"
Another everyday example: a +ve bank balance is in credit, but -ve is
in overdraft. A zero bank balance of $0.00 arises in the obvious way,
by depositing just enough to clear an overdraft or withdrawing the exact
amount of a credit balance. I explain the difference between zero and
nothing by saying that if you happen to have $0.00 in your account, and
you write a cheque (or a check if in USA), everything is OK if the
appropriate overdraft facilities have been arranged and you are willing to
pay the interest. But if you have no bank account and you write a cheque,
the police will start looking for you.
However the large American bank I used to have an account with seems not
to understand the above. They say an account might be automatically closed
if its balance happens to hit $0.00! An unfortunate NZ bank customer had
that problem over 20 years ago, but his bank realised there was a bug
in their new computer system (treating a necessary condition for closing
an account as a sufficient condition), fixed it and reopened his
account. (I closed my account for other reasons to do with their poor
service, but the bank's name and my reasons are nothing to do with [HM].)
John Harper, School of Mathematical and Computing Sciences,
Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
e-mail john.harper@vuw.ac.nz phone (+64)(4)463 5341 fax (+64)(4)463 5045
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