Why are things often numbered with "Zero" first?

[mikodo]

I guess it is a math/computer thing. I have never studied either in secondary school.

Examples.

I have a quad-core CPU.

Numbers in xfce4-sensors are:

Core 0
Core 1
Core 2
Core 3

My hard drive, if I remember properly, always list the first partition as Zero.

I'm sure I've seen other examples but, you get the idea.

Why is this?

[QIII]

Because we Math/computer geeks like to make things confusing so we look smart.

The reason is the notion of an index. Indexes start at zero. When you "index" something, you are making sure your measurement or what have you starts at 0.

If you want to read the first line in a file, you have to start at the 0th position to read through and capture the entire line.

You start at the start or you miss the first thing.

[monkeybrain20122]

Because the set of natural numbers starts with 0 mathematically and "nothing" seems more natural as a start than "one" philosophically.

[mikodo]

Thanks folks.

I remember the imbecile grade 9 math teacher we had, early in the year wasting a large part of a class, having each of we students in the class in turn, try to count to ten. Not knowing any better, we all counted I through 10. He gleefully told each one of us we were wrong. (small things amuse small minds). Then, he introduced zero, and let us guess what negative numbers were. We had no idea, what they were of course.

A few years later, my younger sister was incessantly teased by this guy because she had gone to private school, until grade 12. She had the smarts enough tell our dad. As my sister tells it, dad was out of the house like a shot. The teacher never teased my sister again.

Why, I remember all this now, after 45 years, I'll never know.

[tgalati4]

A two-digit binary number is used to enumerate the CPU's:

00 Core Number 0
01 Core Number 1
10 Core Number 2
11 Core Number 3

Binary is represented as 2^1+2^0

So

0^1 + 0^0 = 0
0^1 + 2^0 = 1
2^1 + 0^1 = 2
2^1 ^ 2^0 = 3

Such counting schemes start with 0.

[mikodo]

Hey.

Two digit binary counting.

Instead of "ten" digit decimal counting.

You sent me on a journey of internet searches.

Thanks.

[Skaperen]

because geeks just can't stand it when the last number in binary gets wider.

[lisati]

Sometimes it's just easier to start with zero. When you're about to go buying your groceries, you start with nothing in your shopping cart, and the bill grows as the adventure in the supermarket happens.

[Bucky Ball]

If you ask a computer programmer how many kids they have and they say one, you know they have two because programmers count from zero.

[mikodo]

Same for wives/husbands?