Let's try not to confuse ourselves in our discussion about nothing by neglecting the difference between "zero" and "null" - it's easy to mean either one when we use the unspecified word "nothing."

(All null sets are identical - almost the fundamental principle underlying all of number theory...)

Hamlet's words come to mind:"...A sound made by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Oops! This one's not Hamlet, but Macbeth, who, in his great "Tomorrow and tomorrow" speech, calls life "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." It's The Bard, so we gotta keep it straight.This whole soliloquy is IMHO a most powerful expression of nihilism.

Slithy, cool one, no matter that the Bard's simpled-minded
pleasant-sounded construction might have have been nice when he was here, but now, you are here, you live, you love - forgive me, I think that you have a damn good mind, so stop your basting in the sun of your peers.

Huh?

> Huh?

Don't go there, slithy, he said nix, it was the moonshine talking! ;)

> How else do we express nothing?

You can't teach a Yorkshireman nowt!

well, this is certainly much ado about nothing! is nothing sacred?! here then are some others that are good-for-nothing:
naught and aught,
cipher,
nil,
goose-egg,
blank,
and last (and least) bugger-all

p.s. - you're right about milum, mav -- he's definitely a perpilocutionist.

()

>How else do we express nothing?

"Nothingness in the Eastern languages is no-thingness. We in the West think of nothingness as a void, an emptiness, a nonexistence. In Eastern philosophy and modern physical science, nothingness - no thingness - is a form of process, ever moving....

When we work in therapy, we always come across no-thingness, and we see that this no-thingness is some very alive process. ... in order to bring things back to life, we have to change them back to process again."

F. S. Perls

Here's something from the Internet that touches on nothingness and defining it v. somethingness:

"The problems considered in epistemology are:



Is genuine knowledge attainable at all? Is the skeptic right?
What are the limits of knowledge?
From what faculties of the mind does knowledge originate?
Which method should be used to obtain valid knowledge?
How do you justify a priori statements?
Where is the boundary between the subjective and objective factors?
What is the nature of truth?


SKEPTICISM

This is the view that questions whether valid or reliable knowledge is ever attainable by a human being. Some skeptics stated that nothing can be known. Other skeptics stated that they did not know whether knowledge was possible; they suspended judgment on the issue. Some of the common examples used by skeptics are the illusions and deceptions of our senses. Others point to the complexity of any experience and ask how you can know what is the essence or real nature of the things you are experiencing."

http://www.philosophyclass.com/epistemology.htm

The question of the senses--how we come to reality through our senses when our senses receive limited and often misconstrued information--presents the problem of what you think you perceive may be a different thing altogether from what I perceive. Take different accounts of an automobile accident witnessed by different people, for example. Take any slice of life witnessed by different people...

That gets into the idea of communication and scaffoding of ideas. Through the back and forth interchange of ideas, we may come closer to understanding each other. The most interesting part of scaffolding (and I've forgotten the philosopher's name who introduced the concept, but may be able to find it today unless someone else knows it) is that of the comprehension of the book an author has written for his/her conceived audience plus the audience of self. But in later times, the book read will be received in a different way because the understanding itself--with its culture, different history, different experiences--will be limited in some ways by not being of the time the work was written, but expanded in others because of new concepts, understandings, and information not known to the author. There were numerous "The Author in His Time" courses offered when I was in graduate school as an attempt to put students into the period of writing so we could make some sort of attempt to understand better the context of the writing.

And another part of scaffolding was the interchange of information and ideas among people discussing and writing about the work. What you bring to my understanding affects my understanding, as mine could yours. But the idea of the work we separately hold in our heads is finally different from each other's, no matter how much we talk or write to each other. Still, there is something to be gained usually from these interchanges.

And, yeah, nothing can come out of such exchanges, if I believe you're dead wrong or vice versa. Well, maybe not. You may gain the idea that I'm dead wrong, and that in itself is another idea and something beyond nothing.

I've had the interesting experience of sharing my poetry with people who have seen things in the poem I never intended to be there, but I've been delighted to read the poems through their eyes. And I've gained something valuable in hearing what they saw--and even have wondered was "it" was there all the time--coming from a repressed or suppressed area in my brain. This experience is scaffolding at its best.

Comment on aught: I never knew that meant nothing. Something new here.

Best regards,
WW

On NOTHINGNESS

Alan Watts

"The idea of nothing has bugged people for centuries, especially in the Western world. We have a saying in Latin, Ex nihilo nuhil fit, which means "out of nothing comes nothing." It has occurred to me that this is a fallacy of tremendous proportions. It lies at the root of all our common sense, not only in the West, but in many parts of the East as well. It manifests in a kind of terror of nothing, a put-down on nothing, and a put-down on everything associated with nothing, such as sleep, passivity, rest, and even the feminine principles. But to me nothing -- the negative, the empty -- is exceedingly powerful. I would say, on the contrary, you can't have something without nothing. Imagine nothing but space, going on and on, with nothing in it forever. But there you are imagining it, and you are something in it. The whole idea of there being only space, and nothing else at all, is not only inconceivable but perfectly meaningless, because we always know what we mean by contrast."

i have always thought nowt was just an alternate spelling (matching pronounciation) of naught. Is it ever written/spelled nowt?

my parent said naught and used naught (especially for zero,) gnaw't-- it not far from that to nowt.

"There is nothing between me and Willow. Okay? Nothing. Bupkiss.
Goose egg. Snake eyes. Othing-nay."


I always thought of "bupkiss" as an Italian-by-way-of-New-Jersey sounding word, but it seems to be a Yiddish expression for "nothing," with variant spelling from the word for "beans."

See http://www.lizzie.net/html/yiddish.htm or http://members.rotfl.com/cookie4/yiddish.html

Bupkiss? Beans?

I don't know beans.

Seems we've discussed that here a while back. Beans got a bum rap, huh?

And, speaking of, wonder where bum rap came from? That's probably a YART, too.

"bupkiss" a Yiddish expression for "nothing," with variant spelling from the word for "beans."

For and extend discussion of bubkes (much ado about "nothing") see
http://www.wordwizard.com/clubhouse/founddiscuss.asp?Num=738

Bubkes: From the Russian word for beans (and, say some sources, the Yiddish for "goat turd"). Something worthless as against expectations, as in, "I worked on it for three hours –- and what did he give me? Bubkes!"

"Now there were exceptions to what we have just stated. The exceptions were the mathematicians who were involved in recording
astronomical data. Here we find the first use of the symbol which we recognise today as the notation for zero, for Greek
astronomers began to use the symbol O. There are many theories why this particular notation was used. Some historians favour
the explanation that it is omicron, the first letter of theGreek word for nothing namely "ouden". Neugebauer, however, dismisses
this explanation since the Greeks already used omicron as a number - it represented 70 (the Greek number system was based on
their alphabet). Other explanations offered include the fact that it stands for "obol", a coin of almost no value, and that it arises
when counters were used for counting on a sand board. The suggestion here is that when a counter was removed to leave an
empty column it left a depression in the sand which looked like O.

Nothing to do with nothing, but I just thought I'd like to point out to people that when Milo said
I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! Alexis! You are a man!
he didn't actually mean that I'm a man... because/and I'm not... however, I am now a journeyman =]

alexis

And we knew you were a woman--that is, those of us who read your profile!!

milum is the funnest one here (I've thunk at times) when it comes to wild enthusiasms and exaggerations for rhetorical effect. His is the art (sometimes) of Risible Rhetoric.

Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets

"There is nothing between me and Willow. Okay? Nothing. Bupkiss. Goose egg. Snake eyes. Othing-nay."

Does "snake eyes" mean nothing to y'all? I thought it was when you roll the dice in craps (or other games of two little numbered cubes) and get two ones (the opposite of "box cars," when you get two sixes). So a numerical rendering of the above statement might read:

"There is nothing between me and Willow. Okay? 0. 0. 0. 2. 0."

Which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. (except that I did once have a girlfriend named Willow and that string of numbers kind of sums the relationship up pretty well - ah, the choices we make when we're young...)

Does "snake eyes" mean nothing to y'all?

A) It's the lowest possible roll.

2) It's an automatic loss if rolled on the first roll.

Þ) It does seem a little out of place. Where'd that snake-eyes quote come from, anyway?

How else do we express nothing?

Since zed is somewhat akin, and seen already seen zilch,
would our Aussie's suggest that by combining zilch and zed, we get Zild?

[running for cover -e]

A little boy at the Zoo looking at an elephant, pointed and said:"What's that?" His mother said:"That's his tail." The little boy said:"Not his tail, what that in front of it?" His mother said:"Oh, that's nothing."
The elephant's attendant said:"My, ma'am, but you're blasé!"

No need to google your Shakespeare,
For we now have our SilkMuse here
To immunize us from confusion
And state precisely each allusion.

[bowing low -e]

How's about nothing in terms of finances?

tapped out
tap city

From William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" Act one, Scene one:

BASSANIO speaks:
Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more
than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two
grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you
shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you
have them, they are not worth the search.

ewein writes:

How's about nothing in terms of finances?
"I'm broke", or as the commercial says, "nut 'n, honey"

Have we covered I'm busted?

Oh, we ain't got a barrel of money,
we may ragged and funny,
but we'll travel along,
singing this song,
side by side

...just felt like remembering something that gives a lilt to being penniless. Hey! That's busted, too!

Broke regards,
WordWasted

Helllllllllllllll-oooooooooooooooooo!?

Slithy Toves way up there already reminded poor ol' Geoff that the line was from Macbeth and not from Hamlet. Sheesh!

Bard regards,
WW

Well, Silk, I've done it, too--repeated information. Goes with the turf here and skimming threads as we all probably do from time to time.

Once this weekend when I needed to delete a post and couldn't because it was in the body of the thread with posts following it, I just deleted the contents, returned to the thread, then edited my "Post Deleted by Wordwind" (or some such language), and added some text to the deletion.

Now that's a dubious solution, but a solution expressed in a whirl. One of the more tech-savvy beings here might have a more practical solution--that is, if you ever really want to delete a post in the body of a bunch of posts. There are good reasons for deletions, such as finding out later that your post appears twice in a row--and that has happened to me several times.

Best regards,
WW

Your mea culpa's are more than enough (but a sweet note to Geoff isn't totally out of order) as Ms WW points out, we have all made mistakes!
welcome to the world we tear your head off for a mistake, and then say, Oh, it wasn't anything at all to worry about.. there is no pleasing us!
but seriously, i am glad you didn't delete. our mistakes, are legion, and add to the fun.. you correct geoff, we correct you , and someone will correct me..

you correct geoff, we correct you , and someone will correct me.
That is completely correct.

I'm busted
Oh, we ain't got a barrel of money, we may ragged and funny,
but we'll travel along, singing this song, side by side

Ray Charles: (I can't put this in the green, can I?)
My bills are all due and the baby needs shoes and I'm busted
Cotton is down to a quarter a pound, but I'm busted
I got a cow that went dry and a hen that won't lay
A big stack of bills that gets bigger each day
The country's gonna haul my belongings away cause I'm busted

We went to your brother to ask for a loan cause you're busted
I hate to beg like a dog without his bone, but I'm busted
My brother said there ain't a thing I can do
My wife and my kids are all down with the flu
And I was just thinking about calling on you ´cause I'm busted

Well I am no thief, but a man can go wrong when he's busted
The food that we canned last Summer is gone and I'm busted
The fields are all bare and the cotton can't grow
Me and my family got to pack up and go
But we'll make a living, just where we don't know cause I'm busted

I'm broke, no bread, no potatoes, I mean like nothing

Where'd that snake-eyes quote come from, anyway?

I'm guessing it's from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There's a character named Willow in it. Plus, the quote smacks of the speaking/writing style on the show.

"Craps or Dice is one of the fastest and most exciting games to be found in any casino. The game
of Craps is thought to have come from the southern United States. Adapted from the English game
of Hazard, popular around the 1800's, the game was played in the cotton fields and later spread
up the Mississippi. The usual locations for Dice games would be steamboats, river wharf's, docks
and saloons. Throughout this period the game was largely reinvented into the modern 'Bank Craps'.
Dice today, may still be heard to be called 'African Dominoes' and of course the history of dice
goes way back. When Caesar took his army across the Rubicon, against the wishes of the Roman
Senate, he used the words of a dice player "Iacta alea est" the die is cast. "

The place of origin suggests origin of phrase 'snake eyes' .

Why craps? Seems a funny word for a game.

WW

guessing it's from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Sounds like a good guess. I googled it and got:

http://www.angelfire.com/mt2/willxanderfic2/rolemodels.html

and

http://www.unfitforsociety.net/otherpete/osaot.htm

There is mention of a Buffy and a Xander.

Looks like a fan fiction site (since I don't recall Xander ever taking a job as a male stripper!). I didn't read the whole thing but the line is very consistent with the actual character of Xander from the show.

My response, to Angel's Shakespeare-quote above, seems to fit better under the thread on "windy expostulations".

If it's zero degrees outside today and it's supposed to
be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold is it going to be?

Zero degrees with a strong wind is twice as cold. I'm reminded of a story I read in Chemistry book a long time. Somebody persuaded the Czar of Russia to have all the Army's buttons made of pure tin. There is one problem though, which was not known to the button makers. I think it is at forty below zero Centigrade (which happens to be same as forty below Fahrenheit), pure metallic tin becomes a powder!
which to me evokes a ludicrous visual image of a long column of half frozen Russkies having to hold up their trousers with both hands.

I think it is at forty below zero Centigrade (which happens to be same as forty below Fahrenheit), pure metallic tin becomes a powder!

As I recall, the pipes of the church organ in the great cathedral of St. Petersburg, being made of tin (as was the then-practice), collapsed completely during a cold snap.

Edit: "A cathedral in St. Petersburg (now Leningrad) installed a magnificant organ with tin pipes. Came a cold, cold winter and the pipes disintegrated--which is how chemists learned about white tin and gray tin. Ordinary metallic 'white tin' is stable only at relatively warm temperatures. In winter cold, there is a tendency for it to turn into a crumbly nonmetallic 'gray tin.'" Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts, p. 246)
http://www.joesabah.com/dseibert/021.htm; near the bottom

Dear Bean: I am going bananas trying to remember term for an element changing characteristics in this way.

bill, polymorphous (in the chemical sense) is not quite right, but perhars may trigger some memories.
Edit: pleomorphism may be synonymous.

Edit: The forms are called allotropes and the transformation is called a reconstructive transformation. For tin, the equilibrium termperature for the transformation is (at normal atmosphreric pressure) 13.2 degrees C.
http://www.msm.cam.ac.uk/Teaching/pastpapers/1998-IA.pdf, at bottom of page 5

Polymorphism seems an acceptable description, but I am sure there is another special term. And I actually think it was at minus fourteen degrees that the transition in tin takes place. It was over sixty years ago that I read it, and no refreshment since. Dear Bean, where are you when we need you?

I know what you mean, Dr. Bill, I think there is a specific word for a sudden change of state like that - the crystal lattice must suddenly re-arrange into a state with lower energy. Crystallization is the closest I can think of but it's not the one I'm looking for. Let me ponder on it - I don't have any solid state physics books around me right now.

Dear Bean: I found a chemistry glossary that had "allotrope" which seems close but not word I knew:

allotrope. allotropy; allotropic; allotropism. Compare with isotope and polymorph.
Some elements occur in several distinct forms called allotropes. Allotropes have different
chemical and physical properties. For example, graphite and diamond are allotropes of
carbon.

Bill, see my edits above, with links, made about 80 minutes ago. I guess I should have put them in separate posts, but I didn't want to overpost!

Dear Ken: I think it obviously should be minus 13 degrees C. As I said I wasn't sure of temperature given in the book so long ago, and used forty just to be sure I picked a low enough temperature. I wonder what kind of a medal the guy who persuaded the Czar to have tin used got. At the very least, he should have gotten "a tin ear."

I think it obviously should be minus 13 degrees C.

although the transition temperature (below which grey tin is the stable allotrope) is 13.2 degrees C, in practice the transformation does not occur at an appreciable rate above about -15 degrees, reaching a maximum at about -30 degrees and becoming very small below -50 degrees. The transformation is catalysed by the presence of grey tin nuclei, but is strongly inhibited by the presence of 0.1% of lead, bismuth or antimony.
http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/cdl/1998/1204.html

The transformation is apparently called "tin plague" or "tin pest", by the way, and there appraently is still another tin allotrope ("rhombic tin") at high temperature.

I wonder what kind of a medal the guy who persuaded the Czar to have tin used got.
Some google sources indicate that this "buttons" story happened in World War II -- which I rather doubt.

PS to dr. bill: why "Dear Ken:"??

Dear Dr. Bill,

We are looking for a verb, not a noun, to describe the act of transformation rather than the fact that two or more different states of tin exist, right? That's why allotrope, and polymorphism, are not it...and I still can't think of the right word.

Bean:

Blind stab: Could the verb be sublimate?

WW

PS to dr. bill: why "Dear Ken:"??

Do you honestly think you're still fooling anybody? You were banned for hurting the board itself and many of the participants. You were banned. Not any handle you might choose, including this one, which is a direct insult to me.

Sublimation is just a solid becoming a gas, without passing through the liquid state in between. It can happen under specific conditions of temperature and pressure, which of course are different for different materials.

Back to the tin question...I did some looking and I think that they seem to call it an allotropic transformation. So I suppose the verb is "allotropically transform"? YUCK! I'm not pleased with that term, I feel like there was a more elegant, maybe slightly more general, one-word term for it, which clearly I will never remember...

The other distinct possibility is that the word I saw in 1941 is obsolete. My recollection of it is that it was only abut six letter long.

ASp, you might want to contact Jo about a conversation she and I had on the subject. You may tell her that she has my full permission to share.