George Beaman's article leads us into uncharted waters

George Beaman's article 'Out For The Count' (see Articles & Views on the Homepage) has produced one of Audlem Online's more testing questions from Mike Dewhirst, who says: "Zero confuses me. Does it exist or, by its nature (if it has one) cannot exist? If negative numbers are positive numbers travelling in the opposite direction then they must have passed through nothing (zero) to get there. If they passed through nothing then that nothing must surely exist.

For example, a piston reciprocating within a cylinder must have zero speed before reversing into a negative direction. If it passes through nothing then nothing must exist – or does it?"

Answers on a postcard, please, or by email to the webteam. George, you have unleashed a query the webteam cannot cope with. Can you help, or can anybody else? Or is this all because the Matrix was on TV last night?

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