If one is looking for the significance of nothing, it is not likely to be found here.
#1* Zero
There is a fair amount of debate on the origin of zero as a number. The great mathematician Al Khawarizmi was not the first to quantify nothing, but gets credit for adding rigor to the study of nothing. Zero is considered even, which is kind of odd.
#2 Descartes
Descartes claimed to have understood nothing, but lost heart and proved god so he would have company.
credit: Stephen M. Campbell
#3 Russell and Whitehead
Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead sought to reconstruct mathematics from nothing. They produced a text which is famously obtuse in a field not known for accessibility.
#4 Ludwig Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein thought Russell was a clown. Wittgenstein went on to write nothing.
Wittgenstein not writing.
#5 Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett wrote something, but the something was generally there to accentuate nothing.
“All known all white bare white body fixed one yard legs joined like sewn. Light heat white floor one square yard never seen. White walls one yard by two white ceiling one square yard never seen. Bare white body fixed only the eyes only just. Traces blurs light grey almost white on white. Hands hanging palms front white feet heels together right angle. Light heat white planes shining white bare white body fixed ping fixed elsewhere. Traces blurs signs no meaning light grey almost white. Bare white body fixed white on white invisible. Only the eyes only just light blue almost white. Head naught eyes light blue almost white silence within. Brief murmurs only just almost never all known. Traces blur signs no meaning light grey almost white. Legs joined like sewn heels together right angle. Traces alone uncover given black light grey almost white on white…”
#6 Yves Klein
Yves Klein painted nothing. Ironically, he wasn’t satisfied with the result and felt the need to touch it up.
Yves Klein leaping into the void?
#7 John Cage
People paid a lot of money to see John Cage not perform.
“The Really Big Button That Doesn’t Do Anything” was, for a time, one of the most visited locations on the Internet. Nothing sells, as long as it doesn’t cost anything.
* Cantor proved that the points in between the rational numbers are greater in number than the rational numbers. The points in between are irrational, but they are not nothing. Pie, for example, is a thing.
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