Zero

While zero is near universally regarded not as a person but as an abstract object, it is hard to see how zero could be the most important person in Zero: Biography of a Dangerous Idea. However, the author, Charles Seife, goes out of his way to treat zero as a character, to give zero a personality and to place zero within a complex plotline, so it is appropriate to treat zero as an important character.

Zero is a kind of eternal being for Seife, something that existed at the beginning of time and something that will exist at the end. Zero holds the secrets of physics and math, always beckoning mathematicians and physicists. Zero is a dangerous theological idea because it carries the threat of tearing the ruling theological ideas of a society to pieces. Zero is mysterious, so much so that it carries an air of unfathomability...