Creative Concept

Many people find our name strange, and they stop and think a lot about our slogan, they also want to know why we use many visuals on the various sections of the site and little text, so here are some insights into our philosophy:

Why the name ZERO?
Cross cultural communication aims to correct cultural misunderstandings, like taking a beautiful painting put upside down and setting it upright. So when creating a name and image for our cultural outreach project, it seemed logical to take a negative concept and turn it around to show its positive face.

The challenge was to find one which also related to how our culture had served humanity. This is the concept of ZERO: the most important digit in the numerical system, the one which makes our 21st century world modern. Try to imagine a world without zeros: it would be a world without trade, technology, credit cards, cars, planes, space ships, robots, video games, digital imaging . a world without any of the things we're so used to today. Yet people around the world tend to think of Zero as "nothing" denying it its precious value.

Regardless of the controversy of who had originally invented the digit Zero, it's an established historical fact that it was Al Khawarizmy, an Asian Muslim whose work on Algebra, Algorithms and Mathematics has introduced ZERO to the western world, which is a good example of cross-cultural collaboration.

The flash introduction on www.zero-net.net illustrates this concept visually:

1. Taking the negative concept of Zero and turning it around (zero= nothing, when in reality zero is actually everything to modern culture)

2. There are always at least two ways to look at a thing (dot and circle are both considered Zero in different parts of the world), so there is no one correct "look" to anything, we need to be able to see things from both angles to respect each other.

3. Our cultures are so different, yet are united in the use of one simple digit that changed our world, so there is no way either of the cultures can survive alone (the circumference and the centre analogy). Instead of trying to change one another, or pretending to be completely similar, we can instead be realistic by recognizing the differences then increasing understanding through respect for each other’s unique cultures.

 ZERO means a lot to the Zero-Net team, it relates to:

1. Starting from Zero to form a new image and new relations with various cultures

2. Zero-in on problem areas to dissolve conflict and on common concepts and values to enhance understanding

3. You can produce miracles with motivation & belief, on Zero budget

4. Being brave in the face of challenging, long-standing perceptions and stereotypes, we’re not afraid of using a wrongly perceived concept.

5. Using creativity in exchanging cultures can be both fun and educational for everyone involved.

6. A shared understanding can connect people in a “net” around an innovative concept such as   “zero”, that’s why we’re called Zero-Net.

History of Zero & Al Khwarizmi

In the field of arithmetic, Muslims made a unique contribution. India possessed a number of forms for expressing numbers that the Muslims acquired. They combined some, and reorganized them into two series, naming one series "Indian" and the other "Ghubari." They used both. The latter was adopted by the West on account of its wide usage in Spain and North Africa and was called by Westerners "Arabic numerals."

More important was the Muslims' invention of a symbol for zero: the Indians used to leave the place blank, so the Muslims gave it the name sifr (cipher, zero). They then organized the numbers into the decimal system where digital location acquired a numerical value beside the intrinsic value of its own. This development was of crucial importance to the progress of all sciences. Before it, numbers were expressed in words with recourse to the fingers to complete an operation. Muslims also invented the symbol to express any unknown quantity, namely x (or s, standing for the Arabic shay'), which was adopted by Europe from the Spanish who had transliterated from the Arabic.

Muhammad ibn Musa al Khawarizmi "Algorismus" (680-750 AD) was a Persian Muslim from Uzbekistan; he was the mathematician who introduced the system of symbols representing the nine numbers, and the inventor of sifr or zero to represent the absence of any. He was also the first to express numerical value by digital position. The two systems, the one expressing number by a symbol rather than a word and the other expressing value by digital position, were continued in the work of Ibrahim al Uqlidisi, and were popularized by Ghiyath al Din Jamshid al Kashi. Later this spread to Europe.

It was al Khawarizmi who invented al jabr or Algebra. He called the new discipline al Jabr wal Muqabalah ("linkage and juxtaposition") to describe what happens in an algebraic calculation.

Al-Khwarizmi documented in Arabic, in the 7th century the original work of the Hindu mathematician Ma-h?v?ral as a superior mathematical construction compared with the then prevalent Roman numerals which do not contain the concept of zero. When these scholarly treatises were being translated by European accountants, they translated 1, 2, 3, and upon reaching zero, they pronounced, "empty", or nothing! The scribe asked what to write and was instructed to draw an empty circle, thus introducing the present notation for zero. Hindu and early Muslim mathematicians were using a heavy dot to mark zero's place in calculations. In time, Europe realized the great potential value of the Arab mathematical contributions and put them into popular use. The sciences, with mathematics as their essence, flourished and developed into the disciplines we know today. None would have been the same though, had it not been for that book on restoration, or had the zero not been invented, or had the Arabic numerals not made their way to Europe. That "fondness of science," which had inspired a Muslim mathematician to propose calculating by al-jabr and al-muqabala, did much to make the world run as we know it today.

Why the slogan: “Don’t Hate, Educate!”?

Heated emotions block rational communication: a basic rule of successful communication is to try to avoid letting emotions -rather than rational thinking- steer the communication process into a dead-end.

Islam encourages fair rational judgment rather than heated emotional reactions when taking a stand on issues or people, so “Don’t Hate, Educate” is basically a fundamental message of Islam, there are numerous verses of the Holy Quran and the verbal and practical tradition of Prophet Muhammad to enforce and encourage fair judgment, kindness to others, and acting on objective opinions:

[O believers! Be witnesses for Allah in equity, and let not hatred of any people seduce you to deal unjustly. Deal justly, that is nearer to piety] Quran: 5:8

[It may be that you dislike a thing, and Allah brings about through it a great deal of good] Quran, 4: 19

The Quran teaches Muslims to reach out to other nations to know them and make friends. To exchange cultures.

[O Mankind, We created you from a single pair of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other] Quran, 49:13

Obviously, we can’t get to know one another except in a positive frame of mind. Stereotyping and pre-conceived hostility aren’t welcomed elements for those who genuinely seek understanding. The Quran declares that all humans are brothers in humanity, and that they should reach out to each other.

In Islam, diversity is a law of creation as part of its religious/ cultural system, the Quran states that people are created different for a reason, that they will remain that way, and that this is actually one of the reasons of their creation, so since they will never be one community, people have to respect those differences:

[If your Lord had pleased, He would have made all people in a single community, but they continue to have their differences – except those on whom your Lord has mercy- for He created them to be this way, and the word of your Lord is final] Quran, 11: 118-119

Therefore, diversity is an unchangeable fact which makes life livable, we should recognize our differences and work with them, rather than challenge them and try to turn others into mutant photocopies of ourselves.

Why the use of Visuals more than text?
Our brain does not function in a linear way, nor does it function with words. Rather it works with images and associations. If someone says the word “fruit” to you, the chances are you will get a picture of fruit, rather than the letters F-R-U-I-T. Consequently, images are a lot more effective when trying to communicate across cultures through language barriers.

When we use the right kind of visuals we make sure the message we want got across without any interference.

At Zero-net.net, we’d like to show you the values of our culture in practice, through the eyes of ordinary people who live by those values.

Zero-net Mission Inspired by Ibn Al Haytham
We wanted to convey a very complex message in our Mission Statement, something to do with the shortest distance between two points and how that affects communication; we wanted to be the crystal prism turning a simple ray of light into a multi-colored spectrum of ideas and viewpoints. We wanted to work on turning “confrontation” into “cooperation” through exploring cultural “visual illusions”! So in a nutshell, we wanted to be a catalyst of offering a new vision, with all the colors of the Rainbow -- on Zero Budget!

That was a tough task for our creative team to do, we researched to link our ideas to the work of a prominent person with unmistakable influence on the science of optics and vision, after a long tedious time, and we found him: Ibn Al Haytham (Alhazen)!

The next tough task was to simplify his substantial theories and link them to our Mission. And you can see that in the Mission Statement flash banner on our home page with the following messages:

1. Globe with a separation line between opposite sides, a person on each end talks in opposite directions, in loud unclear words, to no one in particular, without really “seeing” who they’re talking to or taking them into consideration.

2. One ray of white light = simplified info input without analysis, which has little effect on connecting ordinary people on both sides

3. Prism (Zero-net) = analysis = better vision, seeing, perception (seeing the light, the full spectrum, the whole picture, the different colors of thoughts and beliefs)

4. Spectrum= info output after fair analysis; respecting the various colors of people and of truths, seeing that could help us communicate and make this a better world

5. as a result, the separation line disappears, the two sides meet in the middle and shake hands, the blah

Ibn Al Haytham … The Father of Modern Optics
(Known internationally as Alhazen - 965-1039 CE)

1. He introduced the mathematical theory of vision (i.e taught the world how to see!)

2. More than 1000 years ago, he said that light travels in straight lines (shortest way to the truth)

3. He questioned and corrected theories of his time from prominent philosophers such as Ptolemy and Euclid: he said that we don’t see because our eyes emit light, but that light falls on objects and reflects back to our eyes, and he explained the role of the brain in interpreting what the eyes see.

4. He examined light and colors, perception, optical illusions and shadows (in toher words, he explored the stuff that can cloud our vision)

5. He established linkage between algebra (i.e. the work of Al Khwarizmi on our flash intro) and geometry (i.e. the visual concept on Zero-net)

6. He relied on experiment rather than on past authority (employed critical & creative thinking, which are two skills Zero-net depends on)

7. He warned that truths are immersed in uncertainties (so they needed analysis and careful examination before accepting them as undisputed facts)

8. He introduced the basics of the first law of motion in physics (movement is the essence of innovation and progress)

9. He invented the Pinhole Camera (virtually looked into the future)

10. His work was done in Egypt more than 1000 years ago.

1. His book (Kitab-al-Manadhir) was translated into Latin in the Middle Ages, in it, he traces the functioning of the eye from the optic nerve originating in the brain to the eye itself, whose various parts, such as the conjunctiva, iris, cornea and lens he describes, pointing out the role of each in vision. He was the first to describe in full details the various parts of the eye, attempted to explain binocular vision and gave a scientific explanation of the process of vision.

12. He also made a thorough examination of the passage of light through various media and discovered the laws of refraction, carried out the first experiments on the dispersion of light into its constituent colors, and dealt at length with the theory of various physical phenomena like shadows, eclipses, the colors of sunset, the rainbow, and speculated on the physical nature of light. He gave a correct explanation of the apparent increase in size of the sun and the moon when near the horizon.

13. He asserts that "Truth is sought for itself"—but "the truths," he warns, "are immersed in uncertainties" and the scientific authorities (such as Ptolemy, whom he greatly respected) are "not immune from error...." Nor, he said, is human nature itself: "Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man, who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency."

14. He is known for the earliest use of the camera obscura. Ibn al-Haytham first devised the camera obscura ('al-bayt al-muzlim' in Arabic) or 'dark room' to illustrate the principal that rays of light, reflected from an illuminated object will pass through a tiny hole in a dark room and project an image of the object upside down on a white wall inside the room. He also used this to study sunspots and other solar and lunar phenomena. It was 900 years after Ibn al-Haythams's invention that photographic plates were first used to permanently record the image captured by the camera obscura, thus creating the modern day camera.

15. Through these extensive researches on optics, he has been considered as The Father of Modern Optics. The Latin translation of his main work, Kitab-al-Manadhir, exerted a great influence upon Western science including on the work of Roger Bacon and Kepler.

Useful links:
Children’s activity: how to make a pinhole camera

His anatomy of the eye from Kitab el Manazer (Book of Optics, 1038)

the camera obscura – history