Saturday, July 11, 2009

Is 0 positive, negative, or neither?

Zero as an idea that has a history of not being well liked (e.g. How can nothing be something?). You see people throughout history dislike the idea of nothing. Nothing is a scary and uncomprehensive idea for humans.

Despite all this, zero is said to be neither positive nor negative, instead it is neither (none of the above). Why is this? You see the idea of zero is that zero is a position on the number line. If you extended the number line out from negative infinite to positive infinite, zero would be in the exact middle. The best way to think of zero is as a place holder (in fact this is believe to be how zero got it start) between positive and negative numbers.