Zero Sums

Luisa A. Igloria

February 3

Driving back from the gym, I listen to a radio program where two mathematicians are talking about zero. I'm parked in front of my house, but their conversation keeps me glued to the seat. One of them says in math, whatever operation you do, you need to also be able to undo—just like with multiplication and division. Unless you divide by zero, in which case you get the impossible. Or you get a row of mechanical calculators which get crazy hot and perhaps catch fire, because the numbers just go on looping. To divide by zero results in infinity, because infinity in mathematics isn't actually a number, it's a direction. You could move in that direction, but never get there. Which is to say, if you broke the logic within the known world of numbers and divided by zero, then all numbers become the same number. One is two is three is seventy, whether birthday or anniversary; everything squares out the same. Does this mean all we have equates to nothingness, or does it mean none of our differences matter or exist? On the radio, one mathematician says, sure there's logic in supposing a world where everything is zero. But it's self-contained: it has no birthdays or anniversaries, whether ten or a hundred. Perhaps, then, the porcupine wouldn't have its pin- cushion coat of spangles, or the octopus its eight jelly arms. There'd be no trains or airplanes, olympic sprints, or medals for lifting, since every distance, lap, and weight would be zero. What else is there beyond what we already know? the other mathematician is dying to know. I think his question is kind of like the one my students often pose in challenging the old binary oppositions: can't it be both/and, since multiple things can be true at the same time in our complicated, paradoxical lives? I feel lucky to "own" a home, but we don't really own it (the bank does). I feel lucky to have had children, but even now feel overwhelmed by the obligations of parenthood. I love this life with its bright days and summertime fig harvests, and I hate the daily news of war and violence. I hate it more when I'm told to count my blessings, since there are so many others so clearly worse off than me.