In mathematics, as in poetry, multiple meanings are common and create power for the language. For example, the number 0 is an idempotent element, an additive identity, a multiplicative annihilator -- and it also plays the role of something that may represent nothing.
In Dorothea Tanning's poem below -- I found it at poets.org -- zero takes on still another of its roles, that of place-holder -- as in the numbers 101 and 5000, for example.
Zero by Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012)
Now that legal tender has
lost its tenderness,
and its very legality
is so often in question.
it may be time to consider
the zero--
long rows of them.
empty, black circles in clumps
of three,
Showing posts with label place-holder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label place-holder. Show all posts
Saturday, January 3, 2015
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