Think about Nothing - Tony Matthews: Your Composer of Note

Go to content

Think about Nothing

Poetry
Upon Thinking about Nothing...

Nothing, what is nothing?
Nothing  is less than more
But a lot more than less.
For nothing is a value
That's bigger than minus
Less than plus
Just nothing
Zero
Ziltch
A big fat nought
That I feel ought
To be appreciated.

Pythagoras said "no"
When told of  the great big "O"
He knew nothing about nothing
And even less about less

To him is was all perfect
All numbers written down
A pupil said "Pi" proved him wrong
And so he had him drowned.

The Romans knew nowt of nought
there was nothing there to see
so how did they work this out
When taking V from V.


Nothing was a great step forward
and less a great step more
it meant you have equations
like quadratics more and more.
Like take ax squared + bx
then add a c as well
then at the end of it, there's nothing!
Makes maths a living hell!

So when nothing became something
It meant you should not fret
for now if you had nothing
At least your weren't in debt.

So think about a nothing
it really is the thing
that separates the mores from less
Da-Daa, da-daa, da ding.
( Nothing came into my head for a better last line.....)

[Tony Matthews 2002]
Back to content