The Infinite Jeff mentions a lot of books because it is a book that believes reading is essential for our growth as human beings.

With that in mind, I wanted to start sharing books that I’m reading.

So… What am I currently reading:

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea has been an interesting read so far. A lot of times non-fiction books have fascinating ideas but are a slog to get through. I love learning new things and most of my reading is nonfiction. But, there are many books that I’m glad I read but didn’t enjoy reading. Does that make sense? The ideas are important to me but reading about them can be dry.

To us, zero is an obvious number. But it wasn’t always that way. There was the concept of nothing: I don’t have any sheep but there wasn’t the concept of zero sheep. The line from the book that helped drive the idea that zero was not needed for most ancient people was:

Instead of “We have zero bananas,” the grocer says, “We have no banana.”

They had numbers for things they did have: I have three sheep but there was no need for a number to say they didn’t have anything.

Zero was actually a threat to some mathematicians because it did not follow the definition of a number. Paraphrasing the axiom, if you add two numbers, you get a bigger number. Zero broke their idea of what a number was and introduced other problems to their concept of nature.

And, not only was zero a threat, the concept of infinity challenged their concept of the universe and their concept for God. They believed the universe was finite and the Earth was the center of a huge sphere. So, The Infinite Jeff holds an interesting relevance to this book.

This book has been on my reading list for a long time and I am glad to finally be reading it.

Also, the link above is an affiliate link. So, you can help a poor author in other ways besides buying his book. Enjoy! And, if you read it, leave a comment.