Tram of Thought: Comic strip about psychology, philosophy, society, engineering, and just life in all its gory glory

Zero


I wanted to show you why zero is not obvious.

[Image of a Triangle person pointing something out]

I'll just need to pretend I've got five fingers.

[Triangle-person is holding their hand up, which typically has three fingers, but now has two additional ones drawn with dashed line]

Okay, let's count together. One.

[They are holding the other hand up, with one finger uncurled]

Two. Three. Four. Five.

[Consecutive images of just the hand with more and more fingers]

Now second hand. Six.

[Now they are holding the second hand up, with one finger uncurled]

Seven. Eight. Nine.

[Consecutive images of the other hand with more and more fingers]

Aaand... Ten! Where is the zero?!

[They are now holding both hands up]

[They are shrugging]

It's not there!

[They are walking away, throwing their arms up and losing the dashed-line fingers]

Told you! Not a thing!

[Exit stage right]

I wanted to show you why zero is not obvious.

[Image of a Triangle person pointing something out]

I’ll just need to pretend I’ve got five fingers.

[Triangle-person is holding their hand up, which typically has three fingers, but now has two additional ones drawn with dashed line]

Okay, let’s count together. One.

[They are holding the other hand up, with one finger uncurled]

Two. Three. Four. Five.

[Consecutive images of just the hand with more and more fingers]

Now second hand. Six.

[Now they are holding the second hand up, with one finger uncurled]

Seven. Eight. Nine.

[Consecutive images of the other hand with more and more fingers]

Aaand… Ten! Where is the zero?!

[They are now holding both hands up]

[They are shrugging]

It’s not there!

[They are walking away, throwing their arms up and losing the dashed-line fingers]

Told you! Not a thing!

[Exit stage right]

It would make more sense to count starting with zero, no? Then the digits [numbers] would really be digits [fingers]. It doesn’t make much sense that the 10th finger is a digit, but the 10th number is not.

#science