Brian Rotman obituary

My father, Brian Rotman, who has died aged 87, was a mathematician, semiotician and occasional playwright. He helped shape how we think of mathematics as a cultural system, authoring seven books between 1966 and 2008. Signifying Nothing (1987) offered a fresh view of zero, showing how “nothing” reveals human knowledge structures, while Ad Infinitum … The Ghost in Turing’s Machine (1993) argued that symbols and absences function more like ghosts than concrete entities. He was also a cultural theorist known for his explorations of how inscriptions and bodily gestures influence human thought. A prescient work, Becoming Beside Ourselves (2008), explored how digital media transforms the self into a plural, connected “I”. Born into a Jewish family in the East End of London, he was the son of Bessie (nee Roberts) and Joseph Rotman, who ran a convenience store on the ground floor of their home in Brick Lane. Attending Central Foundation boys’ school in Shoreditch, Brian was the first in his family to finish secondary education, let alone university. He gained his undergraduate degree in maths at the University of Nottingham in 1959, then taught mathematics at Sir John Cass College (now Lon