" ... a tapestry of delicate elaborations on a single beautiful idea." Radical Philosophy
"This unusual book is a delightful analysis of the nature of zero as a sign intimately connected to the ideas of nothing. ... Rotman builds a viable thesis for the semiotics of zero via a thorough examination of Montaigne's Essays, Shakespeare's King Lear, the Kabbalah, and Vermeer's paintings." Choice
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... zero is to number signs, as the vanishing point is to perspectival images, as imaginary money is to money signs. In all three codes, the sign introduced is a meta-sign whose meaning is to indicate, via a syntax which arrives with it, the absence of certain other signs.
... the shifts from Roman to Hindu numerals, from the images of Gothic art to perspectival painting, from gold coinage to imaginary bank money, exhibit parallel patterns of semiotic disruption.
