Ad features a famous physicist saying zero and nothing being the same. Here's the question - are zero and nothing equal? Or is zero a limit function approaching nothing, but always slightly greater than nothing?
Question for the physicists re: Turbo Tax Commercials on zero and nothing
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Philosophically it's a question what zero is. And in physical terms there's no truly empty space as I understand it because virtual quantum particles are popping into and out of existence. But mathematically I thought zero was pretty straightforward. You can define limits approaching X, whatever X may be, but at the same time you can define X to be exactly X.
So if you were to attempt to touch another object, does the space as a mathematical quantity go to zero or a limit function approaching zero? We would express the space as "0" in mathematics, but most quantum physicists believe it is a limit approaching zero but you never actually technically touch the surface of the other object.
I think in mathematics you don't have to worry about physical space or touching another object. Mathemetics is abstract and you define zero as nothing. For the purposes of math, it's irrelevant whether zero can be achieved in the real world.
Ummm, math is the "language" of physics and how virtually all cocepts in physics are explained at a human level. Whether that space is "0" or a limit approaching "0" is not irrelevant to a quantum physcist using math and a mathematical equation (the correct equation) to define the space.
This is a question for CAPTAIN ZERO....
Self-advertising again Mack-Daddy Zero?
Math is the language of physics but it's the language of a lot of things. If you have three apples in a basket and you take away three, you have zero apples, nice and clear cut. Zero is defined nicely in abstract math itself but yeah, when you apply it to various fields, like physics, maybe it loses it's real world meaning if nothing in the real world can truly be zero.
