this post was submitted on 07 May 2024
839 points (98.1% liked)

Science Memes

10950 readers
1977 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] moon@lemmy.cafe 3 points 6 months ago (3 children)

How can nothing be a number

[–] NoFood4u@sopuli.xyz 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

BTW, 0 is typically considered a scalar. As in mathematics scalar is typically defined as a field, which would require an additive identity, namely 0.

[–] StuffYouFear@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

Wouldnt it be best to think of it more as the representation of the absence of something?

Hi, mathematician here. What's a "number"?