No, said Aziraphale, it's ineffable.

earthstory

Personally, this kind of video might be my favorite type. It’s a churning lava lake that explodes outward when the rim collapses, sending debris everywhere. Is this your kind of clip also? If not, what about this planet excites you?

If you have an answer to that question, you’re the person we’re looking for. We are currently recruiting for enthusiastic new volunteer writers for the TES Facebook page and blog.

What we are looking for is individuals who are passionate about the Earth Sciences, be it Geology, Oceanography, Meteorology, Environmental Science or any other branch of science that tells the story of Earth. You will be joining a team of fellow enthusiasts and we promise to make you feel at home! You don’t need a science degree or experience in writing; we can help with all that. We’re happy to provide training in writing, outreach, and even how to come up with a story to write.

If you are interested in joining our team, please message the TES Facebook page and we will get back to you. We will be asking each person to submit an original sample post on a topic of their choosing- so get thinking!

Thank you all for reading; we look forward to your posts and to bringing those posts to the rest of our readers soon.

-The Earth Story.

Video credit: HVO
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/multimedia/index.php?page=3

ri-science

Is zero a number? Was it always a number?

Today, zero has two roles: First, as a placeholder within our number system, representing an absence of a value. It allows us to create huge numbers without extra digits. Its second role is as a number in its own right, in between -1 and 1. We can subtract, add, multiply by 0… but dividing gets tricky. I mean, you can’t divide 1 chicken by 0 chickens:

(You might think the answer would be infinity chickens, but it’s not, as infinity is a concept, not a number)

Most ancient civilisations developed some sort of number system to keep track of things, and they are all thought to have had a general concept of zero.

And when the Indians began developing a number system (the one that evolved into what we use today), zero was first explicitly born, with 9 number symbols and a dot to represent the absence of a number.

In the 7^th Century, Brahmagupta developed terms for zero in addition, subtraction and division… though he struggled a bit with that last one.

Over time, the mathematics of India matured and spread outwards. But it found resistance in Europe, in particular against the established Roman numeral system.

But by the 13^th century academics like Fibonacci were championing zero, helping it gain a solid foothold across Europe:

Zero went on to form the cornerstone of calculus, which allowed anyone to break down dynamic systems into smaller and smaller units approaching zero, but never quite getting there, avoiding the tricky problem of dividing by zero.