
Is zero an even number? - ColinWright
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20559052
======
droithomme
The reason the mayor said "an even number or zero" is because if he said "an
even number", it's really obvious that many people with zero ending license
plates would show up both days claiming zero was neither even nor odd,
thinking they had found a loophole and/or that zero plate holders were lucky
and special.

Explicitly including zero in the rule is not an assertion zero is not even, it
is an attempt to head off the confusion, controversy, lawsuits, fights, and
wasted time needed to later modify the rule when the inevitable controversy
arises.

~~~
PuercoPop
You could say an even number, which includes zero for that effect.

~~~
PuercoPop
Why the downvoting? I was just pointing that the OC makes a non argument. If
one wants to prevent ambiguity of the text, and one thinks that the evenness
of is not clear for the intended audience, one adds a appositive parenthesis
reinforcing that fact.

~~~
hmrmaxwell
It looks like you meant "'an even number, which includes zero' for that
effect", but on first reading, it appeared to me (and perhaps your
downvoters), that you meant "'an even number', which includes zero for that
effect", which would be a significantly less productive comment.

------
huhtenberg
> _The use of the phrase "even number, or the number zero" implies that zero
> is not even._

Ah, no. It implies that some gas station attendants might think that it's not.
It's idiot-proofing the instructions.

~~~
lazerwalker
If that's the case, one could argue that "even number, including the number
zero" would be an equally idiot proof but more technically accurate phrasing.

~~~
dkarl
_If that's the case, one could argue that "even number, including the number
zero"_

Then the hypothetical gas station attendant would argue that the instructions
were self-contradictory and he was just doing his best to enforce them. It
isn't just idiot-proofing, it's argument-proofing, making sure some self-
important nit-picker doesn't disingenuously try to throw everything into chaos
to prove that authority is stupid.

------
bcuccioli
The irony of this article is that the author is trying to sneer at someone for
making a mathematical mistake, which is not technically wrong, but himself
falsely asserts that "The use of the phrase 'even number, or the number zero'
implies that zero is not even", which is not true in the usual first order
logic.

~~~
tsotha
>...but himself falsely asserts that "The use of the phrase 'even number, or
the number zero' implies that zero is not even", which is not true in the
usual first order logic.

But in English it really does imply zero is not even. As a percentage of the
population, just how many mathematicians do you think there are?

~~~
anonymouz
Without further clarifications it is at best ambiguous in English: Sometimes
the "or" is meant to allow both options, sometimes not.

When mathematicians talk in English they usually (by convention) mean the "or"
of first order logic (i.e., inclusive or). Since they happen to be the ones
talking about even/odd numbers and they are a group of people that do require
a language specific enough to have to specify whether the "or" is inclusive or
exclusive, it seems like a good idea that such a statement should be taken in
this framework.

------
agentq
I tried to convince the croupier that zero was an even number, but alas ...

------
pandaman
The policy is somewhat interesting as there are more odd days than even (if a
month has 29 or 31 days then there will be two odd days in a row at the end of
the month) yet it also allows more plates on the odd days (odd numbers + all
other characters). If the last character on the NY plates is evenly
distributed then there will be disproportionally more vehicles filling up on
the odd days and it would be better to drive an even-numbered vehicle.

~~~
mikeash
That will really only matter if the policy remains in effect over a period of
months, which it hasn't.

------
gjm11
Two unrelated thoughts:

1\. In the mayor's place, I'd have considered spelling it out explicitly:
"drivers whose licence plates end in 0, 2, 4, 6, or 8 will be able to buy gas
or diesel only on even-numbered days of the month", etc. This is both idiot-
proof and pedant-proof.

2\. I believe the Pythagoreans (ancient Greek, 6th century BCE) regarded _both
0 and 1_ as not being numbers, and as neither odd nor even.

------
Leszek
Slow news day over at the bbc?

~~~
JonnieCache
This is from their magazine section, the equivalent to the glossy bit you get
with a quality newspaper on the weekend.

------
jonsen
Is zero even a number?

~~~
jerryr
I enjoyed these books on the history of that question:

Charles Seife's "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea"
([http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Biography-Dangerous-Idea-
ebook/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Biography-Dangerous-Idea-
ebook/dp/B000QUEHLM))

Robert Kaplan's "The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero"
([http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-that-Natural-History-
ebook/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-that-Natural-History-
ebook/dp/B0058RTMM2))

~~~
Someone
The book I recommend for this is "From One to Zero".
[http://www.amazon.com/From-One-Zero-Georges-
Ifrah/dp/0670373...](http://www.amazon.com/From-One-Zero-Georges-
Ifrah/dp/0670373958). The reviews on Amazon do not make me reconsider that.
"From One to Zero" comes over as both having more content per page and more
pages.

------
zem
key sentence:

> According to Dr James Grime of the Millennium Maths Project at Cambridge
> University, reaction time experiments in the 1990s revealed people are 10%
> slower at deciding whether zero is odd or even than other numbers.

------
joejohnson
Yes, it is. Please don't upvote fluff pieces like this.

~~~
zem
did you read the article or just the title?

> According to Dr James Grime of the Millennium Maths Project at Cambridge
> University, reaction time experiments in the 1990s revealed people are 10%
> slower at deciding whether zero is odd or even than other numbers.

> Children find it particularly difficult to recognise if zero is odd or even.
> "A survey of primary school children in the 1990s showed that about 50%
> thought zero is even, about 20% thought it was odd and the remaining 30%
> thought it was neither, both, or that they don't know," explains Dr Grime.

~~~
morsch
That's interesting, but hardly unexpected from a cognitive perspective. Zero
is even, but it's not a _prototypical_ even number (like 2). Similarly, if you
ask people whether an ostrich a bird, they take longer to respond than with a
more typical example. A very clearly (and simply?) defined category such as
even numbers is an interesting edge case of the phenomenon.

~~~
zem
yeah, not unexpected, but definitely interesting. certainly not a "fluff
piece" as the grandparent was claiming.

------
Raphael
> numbers to the power of two which would include two, four, six, eight or
> two, four, eight, 16

Ah, yes. Who could ever forget "2 ^ 2.5850"?

