Neanderpundit

Sunday 12 Oct 2008

Is zero odd or even?

12 comments Og | Uncategorized

12 Responses to “Is zero odd or even?”

1. on 12 Oct 2008 at 9:16 am   Mark Alger
   
   

   Hmm. Interesting. I was gonna say:

   Trick question. Zero is not a number.

   That being the dimly-recalled notion from my school days. But in looking it up in order to not appear TOO stupid, I discover that was a notion of the Greek philosophers, not an accepted truth. The Indian (dot not feather) credited with the earliest high-math calculations using zero appears to have accepted that zero is a number.

   Then I ran across an article that zero is an EVEN number, because it meets all of the criteria for an even number (including the odd-even sequence of integer counting, falling as it does between -1 and +1) and none of those for an odd number (the most-key being indivisibility by two). I find the logic compelling

   So, without recourse to more authoritative authority than Wikipedia (go ahead, laugh), I’d have to say even.

   M

2. on 12 Oct 2008 at 9:35 am   Dick
   
   

   Zero is exactly that. Nothing.

3. on 12 Oct 2008 at 11:42 am   emdfl
   
   

   neither – it’s a place-holder, just sitting there until something better comes along, heh.

4. on 12 Oct 2008 at 11:55 am   Slick Rick
   
   

   Politically speaking:

   Obama = Zero

   Thus

   Zero = ODD

   PS Loved the “dot vs feather” Indian identifier.

5. on 12 Oct 2008 at 1:19 pm   Jeffro
   
   

   Being odd or even is above Zero’s pay grade. Why would you want to pigeonhole Zero into your definition of how you want Zero to act? Zero does what Zero wants. It would be racist to call Zero odd or even, because Zero transcends such definitions.

   Let Zero divide, and the answer is infinity – the future of our taxes, for instance. If Zero is on top, you get Zero. What a concept. Zero is so much better than some old white haired war hero Prime Number and his sycophantic piece of Pi.

   All hope and change comes from Zero. Get used to it. Live it.

6. on 12 Oct 2008 at 9:54 pm   Russ
   
   

   It’s an integer and as a previous has noted, it lies between two odd numbers. It’s even. There’s even a proof but I’m too annoyed right now after screwing up a perfectly good Linux installation at the very last minute. I munged the file permissions of all the . files of all the userids.

   Russ

7. on 12 Oct 2008 at 11:16 pm   Pascal Fervor
   
   

   The Big O is i,the imaginary multiplier.

   As with all functions which have no grounding (on any abscissa), and thus appear to float on air, they have imaginary roots.

   All O’s acolytes project their lunacy upon him and he provides them a value (they just don’t know it’s imaginary).

   Mixed in with reality? It’s merely complex. :D

8. on 13 Oct 2008 at 8:08 am   Mark D
   
   

   Zero is even.

   Work shown:
   An even number is one that, when divided by two, does so evenly (aka with no remainder). 0/2 = 0 with no remainder, therefore:
   QED zero is even.

9. on 13 Oct 2008 at 9:10 am   hoosierboy
   
   

   I find it oddly even

10. on 14 Oct 2008 at 8:28 am   Weetabix
    
    

    Mark D beat me to it. If you want to extend it a bit, any number that ends in an even number is even: 14, 16, 18, and… 20.

11. on 14 Oct 2008 at 12:08 pm   Joe Huffman
    
    

    Don’t forget that two is an odd number: It’s the only even prime, therefore is odd.

12. on 30 Oct 2008 at 12:16 am   Aaron Neal
    
    

    Jeffro was funny, I think Mark D is correct…

    Joe Huffman just hurt my brain. Again. I look forward to meeting him at Boomershoot ’09.

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