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Zero – The contradiction between words and numbers

In this article I am dealing with the difference between the meaning and mental representation level of the number zero, when the word problem indicates the existence of a certain thing. This contradiction causes difficulty not only for the 10-year-old problem solvers, but also for university students. I give some statistics about the two different representation levels in the above mentioned two groups. There are huge differences between the two groups because university students were able to handle the problem but only two of them succeeded to do it on an ideal level. In my reasoning, I emphasize that the formulation of the task should not be necessarily short. Classification: C50, D50, F30. Keywords: number zero; word problem; problem solving; mathematics teaching; mental representation.