Nothing At All

by Mel Rosenberg - מל רוזנברג

Artwork: Cover By Miki Peled

After fruitful careers as a scientist and inventor I've gone back to what I love most - writing children's books Read More

Joined Oct 2013
Published Books 1560

I started thinking about nothing at a very young age. Whenever I misbehaved and someone asked me “What did you just do?” I would answer “Nothing”.

As a child, I ruined my father’s mechanical calculator by dividing by nothing. The machine never stopped trying.

When I stared at a pretty girl and her boyfriend asked me what I was staring at, I answered “Nothing”.

In high school we studied someone called William Shakespeare (don’t know whether you ever hear of him, but he was big four hundred years ago). Shakespeare wrote plays. One was called “Much Ado about Nothing”. He must have been a real maven. In my favorite Shakesperean play, King Lear had this discourse with his young daughter:

“KING LEAR: ..what can you say to draw

A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
CORDELIA: Nothing, my lord.
KING LEAR: Nothing?!
CORDELIA: Nothing.

KING LEAR: Nothing will come of nothing, speak again.

In the end, nothing could save her.

As a univeristy student, I thought nothing of reading Kafka in class (chemistry class). As a result, I learned nothing in chemistry.

Nothing prevented me from mixing elemental sodium (a bar of it) and water (a pot of it) in our organic chemistry lab. Nothing was left of the lab. When the professor asked me what I was thinking about while I was doing something that stupid, I answered “nothing”.

Many years ago, my wife bought me a book full of nothing. It was called “The Nothing Book”. They were quite popular at the time. Warner Books claimed to have sold hundreds of thousands. Some publishers will stop at nothing. They didn’t.

"The Nothing Book". Warner Books claimed to have sold hundreds of thousands

The idea was that you would fill your nothing book with something. These books can be bought and sold on Amazon and Ebay for thousands of dollars. Or so they say.

The Nothing Book: Wanna Make Something of It? Hardcover – November 13, 1974

by Crown (Author)

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I filled my nothing book with vacuous ideas, vacant thoughts and useless inventions.

The last entry in my Nothing Book was exactly thirty years ago. Since then, nothing.

My nothing book is full with vacuous ideas, vacant thoughts and useless inventions

Two years ago my friend Enon Landenberg gave a talk about nothing at a TEDxTelAvivSalon event. He said his wife gave him the idea. She was probably whispering sweet nothings in his ear.

If you have nothing to do, watch the video. Over 2,400 people who had nothing to do did.