“Everyone believes in zero as a number, but we always ignore it when counting. We start at one.”

—  Mwanandeke Kindembo

Last update Dec. 28, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Everyone believes in zero as a number, but we always ignore it when counting. We start at one." by Mwanandeke Kindembo?
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo 1044
Congolese author 1996

Related quotes

Terry Pratchett photo

“There are millions of chords. There are millions of numbers. And everyone forgets the one that is a zero. But without the zero, numbers are just arithmetic. Without the empty chord, music is just noise.”

Terry Pratchett book Soul Music

Source: Soul Music

Koichi Tohei photo

“We begin with the number one in counting all things. It is impossible that this one can ever be reduced to zero. Because just as something cannot be made of nothing, one cannot be made from zero. Ki is like the number one. Ki is formed from infinitely small particles, smaller than an atom. The universal ki condensed becomes an individual, which further condensed becomes the one point in the lower abdomen, which in turn infinitely condensed never becomes zero, but becomes one with the universe. Thus we understand the essence of ki.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

11 : The definition of ki
Ki Sayings (2003)

“We act like a zero-sum society, when in reality there is a lot of non zero-sum fat to be skimmed off to everyone's mutual advantage.”

Howard Raiffa (1924–2016) American academic

Part IV, Chapter 21, Environmental Conflict Resolution, p. 310.
The Art and Science of Negotiation (1982)

George W. Bush photo

“In America, we've not always lived up to our ideals, yet we always reached for them. We believe that everyone deserves a chance, that everyone has value, that no insignificant person was ever born. We believe that all are diminished when any are hopeless. We are one people, committed to building a single nation of justice and opportunity.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2002, Compassionate Conservatism (April 2002)

Derek Parfit photo

“Why do we save the larger number? Because we do give equal weight to saving each. Each counts for one. That is why more count for more.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Derek Parfit, ‘Innumerate Ethics’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 7, no. 4 (Summer, 1978), p. 301

Muhammad Ali photo

“I don't count my sit-ups; I only start counting when it starts hurting because they’re the only ones that count.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist
John D. Barrow photo

“Everyone knows there are billions and billions of stars, and national debts conjure up similar astronomical numbers. Yet we have found a way to hide the zeros: 109 doesn't look as bad as 1,000,000,000.”

John D. Barrow (1952–2020) British scientist

Source: The Book of Nothing (2009), chapter nought "Nothingology—Flying to Nowhere"

Robin Hobb photo

“the greatest danger is always the one we are ignorant of.”

Robin Hobb book Fool's Fate

Source: Fool's Fate

Leonard Susskind photo

“Elegance requires that the number of defining equations be small. Five is better than ten, and one is better than five. On this score, one might facetiously say that String Theory is the ultimate epitome of elegance. With all the years that String Theory has been studied, no one has found even a single defining equation! The number at present count is zero. We know neither what the fundamental equations of the theory are nor even if it has any.”

Leonard Susskind book The Cosmic Landscape

[The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design, 2008, Little, Brown, https://books.google.com/books?id=RIW9E1sOyxUC&q=epitome#v=snippet&q=epitome&f=false]

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

Related topics