Z.E.R.O.: Zero Paid Media as the New Marketing Model

FOREWORD

ZERO n.: 0 (with n = infinity)

In the dramatic year 2000, Science magazine journalist Charles Seife published Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea. He took his readers on a fascinating and accessible historical ride, explaining the role of this iconic number in humankind's eternal quest to understand why it is that we, and the universe, exist.

Zero was, is, and to date remains a highly controversial notion in science thinking. As Seife shows, “Zero is behind all of the big puzzles in physics . . . dividing by zero gets you infinity . . . it destroys the fabric of mathematics and the framework of logic.” Within the pure logic framework of Pythagoras and his ancient Greeks, zero and infinity were numbers that ruined everything, so they were simply banned. During the Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment, people started to test their way around in science, rather than rely on pure ratio or unconditional belief in God. They experimented, they played, and they observed. They used their own brains. For scientists ranging from Isaac Newton to Steven Hawking, zero and infinity were back, and some illogic was accepted. It appears that in the recent past decades of more logic-oriented string theory and cosmology, zero and infinity have had to take a backseat again. Seife concluded that the eternal fight to demystify existentialism continues, and zero continues to star in a provocative role.

In 2013, Joseph Jaffe and Maarten Albarda propose their own existential version: Z.E.R.O. ...