QQC 3: Much ado about

Quote: "Although we could now write numbers down and say them concisely, we had not thought of everything. Or to be more precise, we had not thought of nothing. Zero had not been invented - and that was a big problem."

Questions: Can negative numbers exist without zero? Did they have negative numbers during Rome's golden age? Why exactly does 0 not obey those rules (I can see how it doesn't, but WHY)?

Comment: It's amazing the power zero and negative numbers have. Whats even more impressive is the kind of mind it takes to recognize these things. There is a philosophical idea that something that can not be comprehended can not exist (seriously, try thinking of something that doesn't exist), so up until a certain point no one could really know what these numbers were. Especially since I feel there are very few applications for negative numbers and zero back in the day. Negative numbers could be used to calculate debt but numbers were first conceived from counting. Numbers count an amount of something that is there, zero accounts for something that isn't there so it would take a revolutionary mind to think of something that doesn't exist. Negative numbers count even less than non-existent so it would take yet another revolutionary mind. To think, these sets of nobodies and less-than-nobodies have some much power in the mathematical world. My only real concern about these seemingly untouchable ideas is, human are imperfect therefore what we come up with will be imperfect, so what potential flaws are there in the system of math or in zero and negative numbers?

QQC 2: Mind set of champions

Quote: Character is what allows you to reach the top and stay there. Darryl Strawberry, Mike Tyson and Martina Hingis reached the top, but they didn't stay there.

Question: Is the author discrediting natural talent? Is he saying character is more important? or that talent comes from character?

Comment: After reading this it seems like the two most important qualities to an athlete are humility and character. Another good way to describe those players who have both of those is a clutch player. Clutch is a term used to describe a player who can deliver during difficult situations like play off games or when trying to make a come-from behind victory. But I'll go more into that later. In the case of this quote, and there are plenty of examples of both ends of the clutch character spectrum. On the not-so-good end of the spectrum, we have LeBron James. Coming out of high school, LeBron James was one of the most talented new players to ever come into the NBA and earned the nick name King James the Chosen One. He went to a rather poorly skilled, Cleveland Cavilers team and out-shined the rest of his team mates, but was accused of not being a clutch player by the media after seemingly giving up during the NBA playoffs. But he got the benefit of the doubt because he was on a slightly lack-luster team.

He then went to the Miami Heat, a team full of skilled players and the championship favorite going into the season. They played through the season, and low and behold they made it to the playoffs. In fact they made it all the way to the championship series. They dominated the earlier games against the Dallas Mavericks, but soon enough the Chosen One would become the Frozen one. Its a seven game series and the Mavericks made a come back to win the championship. If you look on the other end of the court the one who showed the most character and clutch skill was Dirk Nowitzki of the Mavericks, he scored the majority of the points for a seemingly outmatched team. Dirk Nowitzki is a very talented player but compared to James, he receives about as much attention as he received in this blog post.

QQC

Quote-There isn't a great deal that goes on in the universe that astronomers can't find when they have the mind to

Question-I'm really hoping this is an exaggeration, because every telescope takes pictures through the use of light, so how is they can get up to date information?

Comment- I'm really interested in the idea set up by the quote because I feel like its a little exaggerated. Some of the other ideas presented in the reading also appear to show some "laziness" and inaccuracy. Not to insult mathematicians,but the creation of AUs (Astronomical Units) seemed a little useless since we already have exponents and scientific notation to account for large distances and values. Besides, the more we of these types of units we come up with the less accurate results become. 1x10to the 20th miles is a lot more precise than 17.5 AUs. As distances increase and technology advances, it is very likely that these units will get less and less precise which can be dangerous if we ever go into long distance space trips (provided we get to that point).

This whole idea of making larger units to make these ever growing distances easier to manage is counter productive to the purpose of math. Math ,in my mind, is meant to be precise in the answers it acquires (when done correctly). If it becomes inaccurate then it really hurts a lot of its practical uses.