Showing posts with label Laurie Clemens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Laurie Clemens. Show all posts

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Zero Power

To neutralize the differing effects of any non-zero numbers -- to wipe out vast differences between numbers -- we may raise each of them to the power zero.*  When 0 is applied as the exponent for any nonzero number, the result is 1.  So 70 = 1 and 5378 0 = 1 and (.001)0 = 1.   And here are "zero power" and other mathematical concepts interpreted in a poem.

     N to the Zero Power     by Laurie Clemens

     He holds one photograph
     featuring one man and one woman.

     Three birds perch on two wires
     forming an isosceles triangle over the last
     red brick street in town.