This is it: the book critic’s nightmare. A creature of unquiet dreams, wrought of the most tenebrous dregs of the Morphic philter. A chimera of … well, you get the idea. This is a book about nothing, filled with scary math problems. If you were to find yourself reviewing a book in your underwear, late for a final exam, with wolves chasing you around a pink marble obelisk — this is that book. As Charles Seife explains: “Consider the expression x/(sin x) when x = 0; x = 0 as does sin x, so the expression is equal to 0/0. Using L’Hopital’s rule, we see that the … ” And then you wake up in your chair with that copy of the new Judith Butler still fluttering in your lap — we all know the drill.
— Gavin McNett, “’Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea’ by Charles Seife,” Salon
