Zilch is one of the words used to conceptualize the human experience of utter nothingness. It describes a very pervasive phenomena in that it gives expression to the ultimate simplification when evaluating the consequences and pros and cons of every aspect of reality. It describes the amount of cabbage left after all the white butterfly caterpillars have had their lunch. It describes the level of donated aid reaching a disaster area after it has gone thru the local ethnic administration. It indicates the size of the refund you can expect after having paid a deposit on a non-existent bar of gold.

Formally, the null set Ø = { } is a mathematicians fantasy in supposing there to be a set with no elements. Ordinary gardeners might be forgiven for supposing that a set with no elements wasn't actually a set, in the same naive manner that they might maintain that a garden with no plants wasn't actually a garden. But gardeners don't normally have theorems to prove before they plant seeds or indulge in some weeding. To mathematicians however, not having this entirely transparent and vacuous entity in their conceptual toolkit is a serious impediment to the formulation of synoptic theory, and consequently to the development of arcane academic publications. A gardening club however, that is so exclusive that it must have no members, would cease to exist the moment one joined it. There is no prestige in that.

Fortunately, with the assistance of everyday experience, it is relatively simple to appreciate the concept. It is just a box, full of all those entities, places and theories, which exist only in supposition and hypothesis. It's utter emptiness is entirely filled with human faerie fantasies. Prophets, gods, and souls are there in absentia. Unicorns, spirits, ghosts and goblins are enrolled but absent. Heaven and hell are infinitesimally small discontinuities that are essentially undetectable. Space curvature, folded dimensions and the expansion of the universe have all diffused out thru the symbolic hole in the bottom of the box.

Thus we have it, and we have the mathematicians to thank. The entire totality of human faerie fantasies, is an infinite set of nonsensical elements, which constitute the elements of the null set. Nothing to it.