“He’d always felt he had a right to exist as a wizard in the same way that you couldn’t do proper maths without the number 0, which wasn’t a number at all but, if it went away, would leave a lot of larger numbers looking bloody stupid.”

—  Terry Pratchett , book Interesting Times

Source: Interesting Times

Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

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Do you have more details about the quote "He’d always felt he had a right to exist as a wizard in the same way that you couldn’t do proper maths without the numb…" by Terry Pratchett?
Terry Pratchett photo
Terry Pratchett 796
English author 1948–2015

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“I went "0-7…" and he actually went "Slow down!" So I went "0…" and he went "0-7-0…" "No! 0-7…" "0-7-0-0-7…" "No! 0…7…" "0-7-0-0-7-0-7" "Start again!" "How's Susan?" "Not the conversation, the number! That's not my number!" "Giving me a fake number?! Don't you want me to call?!" "No, no…!"”

Michael McIntyre (1976) British comedian

Anyway, he hasn't called.
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“I've been briefed on every contingency you can possibly imagine. Many contingencies. A lot of—a lot of positive. Different numbers. All different numbers. Very large numbers. And some small numbers too, by the way.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Regarding coronavirus. Posed question: "Mr. President, have you been briefed that up to 100 million Americans would ultimately be exposed to the virus?"

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“Any property belonging to 0 and to the immediate successor of any number that also has that property belongs to all numbers.”

Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932) Italian mathematician

As expressed in Galileo's Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science (2003) by Peter Atkins, Ch. 10 "Arithmetic : The Limits of Reason", p. 333
Peano axioms
Context: 1. 0 is a number.
2. The immediate successor of a number is also a number.
3. 0 is not the immediate successor of any number.
4. No two numbers have the same immediate successor.
5. Any property belonging to 0 and to the immediate successor of any number that also has that property belongs to all numbers.

José Saramago photo

“He got out of the van to see how many other suppliers were ahead of him and thus calculate, more or less accurately, how long he would have to wait. He was number thirteen, he counted again, no, there was no doubt about it. Although he was not a suspirations person, he knew about that number’s bad reputation, in any conversation about chance, fate or destiny, someone always chips in with some real-life experience of the negative, even fatal influence of the number thirteen. He tried to remember if he had ever been in this place in the queue before, but the long and the short of it was that either it had never happened or else he had simply forgotten. he got annoyed with himself, it was nonsense, utterly absurd to worry about something that has no real existence, yes, that was right, he had never thought of that before, numbers don’t really exist, things couldn’t care less what number we give them, its all the same to them if we say they’re number thirteen or number forty-four, we can conclude, at the very least, that they do not even notice the position they happen to end up in. people aren’t things, people always want to be in first place”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 9 (Vintage 2003)

C.G. Jung photo

“I have always been impressed by the fact that there are a surprising number of individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and an equal number who do use their minds, but in an amazingly stupid way.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology
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“I'm sure a mathematician would claim that 0 and 1 are both very interesting numbers.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

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Giuseppe Peano photo

“1. Zero is a number.
2. The successor of any number is another number.
3. There are no two numbers with the same successor.
4. Zero is not the successor of a number.
5. Every property of zero, which belongs to the successor of every number with this property, belongs to all numbers.”

Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932) Italian mathematician

As expressed in "The Mathematical Philosophy of Giuseppe Peano" by Hubert C. Kennedy, in Philosophy of Science Vol. 30, No. 3 (July 1963)
Peano axioms

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“I've always felt that a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.”

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)
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“Yet he would be wrong in an infinite number of ways.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Appendix VI : A few principal rituals – Liber Reguli.
Magick Book IV : Liber ABA, Part III : Magick in Theory and Practice (1929)
Context: We know one thing only. Absolute existence, absolute motion, absolute direction, absolute simultaneity, absolute truth, all such ideas: they have not, and never can have, any real meaning. If a man in delirium tremens fell into the Hudson River, he might remember the proverb and clutch at an imaginary straw. Words such as "truth" are like that straw. Confusion of thought is concealed, and its impotence denied, by the invention. This paragraph opened with "We know": yet, questioned, "we" make haste to deny the possibility of possessing, or even of defining, knowledge. What could be more certain to a parabola-philosopher that he could be approached in two ways, and two only? It would be indeed little less that the whole body of his knowledge, implied in the theory of his definition of himself, and confirmed by every single experience. He could receive impressions only be meeting A, or being caught up by B. Yet he would be wrong in an infinite number of ways. There are therefore Aleph-Zero possibilities that at any moment a man may find himself totally transformed. And it may be that our present dazzled bewilderment is due to our recognition of the existence of a new dimension of thought, which seems so "inscrutably infinite" and "absurd" and "immoral," etc. — because we have not studied it long enough to appreciate that its laws are identical with our own, though extended to new conceptions.

John Wallis photo

“Let as many Numbers, as you please, be proposed to be Combined: Suppose Five, which we will call a b c d e. Put, in so many Lines, Numbers, in duple proportion, beginning with 1. The Sum (31) is the Number of Sumptions, or Elections; wherein, one or more of them, may several ways be taken. Hence subduct (5) the Number of the Numbers proposed; because each of them may once be taken singly. And the Remainder (26) shews how many ways they may be taken in Combination; (namely, Two or more at once.) And, consequently, how many Products may be had by the Multiplication of any two or more of them so taken. But the same Sum (31) without such Subduction, shews how many Aliquot Parts there are in the greatest of those Products, (that is, in the Number made by the continual Multiplication of all the Numbers proposed,) a b c d e. For every one of those Sumptions, are Aliquot Parts of a b c d e, except the last, (which is the whole,) and instead thereof, 1 is also an Aliquot Part; which makes the number of Aliquot Parts, the same with the Number of Sumptions. Only here is to be understood, (which the Rule should have intimated;) that, all the Numbers proposed, are to be Prime Numbers, and each distinct from the other. For if any of them be Compound Numbers, or any Two of them be the same, the Rule for Aliquot Parts will not hold.”

John Wallis (1616–1703) English mathematician

Source: A Discourse of Combinations, Alterations, and Aliquot Parts (1685), Ch.I Of the variety of Elections, or Choice, in taking or leaving One or more, out of a certain Number of things proposed.

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