The Hindu-Arabic numeral system was invented almost eighteen hundred years ago; however, it turns out that we know too little about numerical digits we have been using to this day! We’ve prepared a compilation of most interesting facts about numbers! Read them to cheer yourself up and expand your knowledge! This article is devoted to “zero” and “one.”
Facts about "zero"
- Do you know that there are at least 6 words in Modern English that are used to denote the number “0”? Those words include zero, nil, nought/naught, oh, zip, and last but not least, zilch!
- Have you ever given any thought to the fact that there is no year zero? Still don’t believe? Just flick through an encyclopedia of the world history and you’ll see that the year 1 BCE is followed by the year 1 CE!
- Think that water freezes at zero degrees Celsius? Well, in fact, this is its boiling point! When Andres Celsius first proposed his scale of temperatures he used the “zero” mark to denote the boiling point of water while 100 degrees Celsius was used for the freezing point!
- When choosing a hotel, the first question we ask is “how many stars?” We all know that the more stars, the better. Think that a hotel with the lowest rating is a one-star hotel? Then if you are planning a trip to Switzerland, make a reservation at the “Zero Star” Hotel (Null Stern); the building was previously used as a bomb shelter.
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Facts about "one"
- Believe that “one” is a number? Well, the ancient Greeks could have debated the issue! According to Euclid, “two” is the first number since a number is “aggregate of units.”
- If you add one hundred zeros to the number “1” you will get a googol. As you might have guessed, “Google” is a misspelling of “googol!” This may give you a laugh; however, nowadays, most everyone knows about Google while “googol” is a less common word.
- A word starting with the prefix “uni” means “having only one,” for example, uniform, unicorn, or unicolor. Besides, the notion of oneness is hidden in the following roots: un-, sim-, prin-, cen-.
- Did you know that the meaning of singleness is expressed in the following commonly used words: onion, any, ounce, sincere, primrose, and primitive?
- What are your most frequently used words? According to a study conducted by Oxford Online and the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “one” is ranked 35th most commonly used word in Modern English. The word “the” tops the list.
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