Mathematical motifs feature in many of Shakespeare’s most memorable scenes. He lived and wrote in the late 16th century, when new mathematical concepts were transforming perceptions of the world. Part of the role of the theatre was to process the cultural implications of all these changes.
People in Shakespeare’s time were used to the idea of the infinite: the planets, the heavens, the weather. But they were much less used to the inverse idea that the very small (and even nothingness) could be expressed by mathematical axioms. In fact, the first recorded English use of the word “zero” wasn’t until 1598.
Thinkers like Italian mathematician Fibonacci, who lived in the 13th century, helped to introduce the concept of zero – known then as a “cipher” – into the mainstream. But it wasn’t until philosopher René Descartes and mathematicians Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz developed calculus in the late 16th and early 17th centuries that “zero” started to figure prominently in society.
