It has just been reported that a RAF helicopter pilot and his unemployed wife, both based in Anglesey, are expecting their first child.
Osborne is wringing his hands at the prospect of another drain on the nation’s dwindling resources. IDS has yet to confirm whether the Child benefit cap applies.
Billy Preston’s 1974 hit illustrates a concept that it took the best mathematical minds over two millennia to grasp.
The Babylonians, as far back as 2000 BCE, first conceived of a mark to indicate the absence of a number in a string of numbers. The Indian mathematician, Brahmagupta, in around 650 AD began to formalise the use of zero in mathematical operations. He distinguished between the use of zero as a sunya – meaning empty or nothing – and kha meaning place, where it represents a null in a string of numbers. He also devised a set of rules for dealing with the addition and subtraction of zero but got division wrong.
The spice traders brought Brahmagupta’s theories to Baghdad. The ninth century mathematician, Al-Khowarizmi, worked on equations which equalled zero and called zero “sifr” from which we have derived our word cipher. He also developed algorithms as a quick method of multiplying and dividing numbers. By 879 AD zero was written as an oval, as it is now.
Zero finally reached Europe in the twelfth century and Italian mathematician, Fibonacci, built on the Arabian mathematician’s work in his book, Liber abaci. The merchant community picked up on his ground-breaking work but the authorities were suspicious of the use of Arabic numerals because they were relatively easy to change. Though it was outlawed, merchants continued to use zero in encrypted messages, known as ciphers.
The work of Descartes – the base point of the Cartesian co-ordinates is 0,0 – and then of Newton and Lebiniz (who independently solved the issues around the division of zero) and the development of calculus really cemented zero’s place in European numerology and the rest is history, as they say.
So is zero odd or even? The standard test for an even number is whether it is divisible by 2. It is. Its place in the list of numbers is between two odd numbers, -1 and 1. So zero is an even number. Remember this if petrol is rationed based on the whether the final number in your registration number is odd or even , as was the case recently in New York.
It is at times like these when I feel I am in danger of agreeing with Cameron that I rush to a darkened room, lie down and apply a cold compress to my fevered brow. But to no avail – in the post Leveson kerfuffle I believe he is exactly right to resist any form of legislative press control.
A royal proclamation in 1534 required for the first time in England that documents be licensed prior to publication. The religious struggles of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries saw the introduction of even more rigorous censorship. Perhaps the most eloquent defence of freedo of expression came from the pen of the poet, John Milton, in his Areopagitica from which the headline comes. Indeed, it became the cornerstone of many of the arguments used today for press freedom.
Alas, it did the cause no immediate good and it was not until the Protestant Ascendancy that legislative control of the press was abolished in 1695. Severe restrictions on the press continued, however, in the form of seditious libel laws under which the government was able to arrest and punish any printer who published material in any way critical of the government. There was no clear definition of what constituted seditious libel, and in the 18th century. the printing of parliamentary debates had to be disguised as debates between classical figures. At this time, both true and false criticism of the government was considered libel. In fact, legal doctrine proclaimed that “the greater the truth the greater the libel.” Only in the mid-19th century. did truth become admissible as a defence in English libel cases.
I can’t help thinking that any attempt to control the press through statute is the first step on a very slippery slope. John, we need you now.
windowthroughtime 