Make Something of Nothing ... with Bob Dylan

     The puzzle of nothing actually being something is central to our use of numbers -- and I use it today as an excuse to link to a Bob Dylan song and celebrate his recent Nobel prize.  Below I offer one (the 3rd, of six) of the stanzas of "Too Much of Nothing" -- followed by a link to the complete lyrics.  (And for those readers seeking other poems of nothing, here is a link to blog poetry from 2011 about division by zero, this link leads to making something of nothing . . .  and this link leads to several nothing links -- it was found via a blog search using the search term "zero.")

from     Too Much of Nothing     by Bob Dylan

          Too much of nothing
          Can make a man abuse a king
          He can walk the streets and boast like most
          But he wouldn’t know a thing
          Now, it’s all been done before
          It’s all been written in the book
          But when there’s too much of nothing
          Nobody should look

Here is a link to the complete lyrics of "Too Much of Nothing."  Enjoy.
                                          

Math lyrics -- Lehrer et al

Mathematicians with poetic tendency often use their word-talents to write song-lyrics rather than poems; a master of the song-writing art was/is Tom Lehrer.  As an undergraduate at Harvard in the 1940s,  Lehrer majored in mathematics; he is best known for songs he recorded in the 1950s and 1960s.  Here are Lehrer's lyrics for "The Derivative Song" -- written to be sung to the tune of "There'll Be Some Changes Made" (by Benton Overstreet, with original lyrics by Billy Higgins).