Excerpt from Chapter 0 from the physics book Infinite Cold Energy by Robert Franklin

The word meta is derived from the Greek language meaning after or beyond. In Latin, meta is equivalent to the words post- or ad-. In epistemology, the word meta is used in conjunction with another word to create a custom category. The word meta was first used in Mycenaean Greek, the most ancient attested form of Greek language between circa 1600 to 1100 BC. The word meta was made popular by a book editor when he used the word metaphysics as a title for a collection of works by the Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle mentioned earlier in the Introduction.
      The idea for using the word meta in this book was mainly inspired by professor Nader Engheta and his group in the electrical engineering department at the University of Pennsylvania, who in 2012 created the first optical circuit dubbed a "metatronic" circuit made from a new type of manmade material called metamaterial. Afterwards, I used the title metatricity for several projects inspired by the metatronic term. After that, back in 2014, I decided to start using the term meta for the first number of the Greek numeral system instead of the Greek word omicron which stands for the Greek letter o or O. The symbol for zero is correctly spelled 0 and the zero will sometimes have a forward slanting line through the middle of the number zero, or it will have a dot in the middle. There are a lot of people who say "O" when they should be saying "zero," as in "0." It does make a difference, especially when passwords are involved.
      Going back in history, years ago some people feared the number zero. Charles Seife, the author of the book Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, mentions how the number zero was banned by the Greeks, worshipped by the Hindus and used by the Church to fend off heretics. Charles Seife mentions further how the number zero is "infinity's twin," and "is both nothing and everything," the "yin and yang." However, using the number zero is not a substitute for the word nothing or nothingness. The number zero is something and nothing is nothing. Like the old saying goes: "From nothing comes nothing." So, using the number zero for the word nothing is a really bad idea because actually there really is no such thing as nothing, except for the word itself. There is one exception to there being nothing and that could be the words darkness, and silence which is something, but at the same time is nothing. Neither word, nor the two of them combined, are capable of producing work in the macroscale, nor in the sub-Planck scale.

SOMETHING versus NOTHING

Back in 1991, when I first began to work on the theory called Infinite Cold Energy (I.C.E.) as a way to explain from where the Big Bang originated, part of the idea was based on the notion that everything was derived from nothing. I used the nothingness word until some time around the mid-1990s before I started using the word somethingness as a replacement. To this day, I sometimes hear people say it or I will sometimes read articles where people are still using the nothing, and nothingness words, but the words something and somethingness are now far more popular.
      There are publications available that provide information about the history behind the use of the word nothing. In 2001 two physics books on the subject of nothingness were published. One book by K.C. Cole titled The Hole In The Universe goes extensively into the subject, as well as, a book by John D. Barrow's titled The Book of Nothing. Another word that is sometimes used instead of the nothingness word is the word void. Jean-Pierre Luminet, an astrophysicist who reviewed John D. Barrow's book in 2002, stated in his review that the Greek poet Hesiod (eighth century BC) theorized that the world was created ex vacuo (out of the void) that existed before the world was created, instead of ex nihilo (out of nothing). In the review Jean-Pierre Luminet also mentioned there is a fundamental distinction between the two words void and nothing that for centuries has led to "commentaries and controversies in the fields of philosophy and religion, as well as, in science." Jean-Pierre Luminet continued on by mentioning that another book with almost the exact same title called Book of Nothing was published in 1510 by the illuminist philosopher Charles de Bouelles, in Amiens, France, under the Latin title Liber de Nichilo. Jean-Pierre Luminet finalized his statement by saying Charles de Bouelles "invoked the metaphysical and mystical doctrines of Nicholas of Cusa (a German philosopher) and the Neoplatonists to show God in the act of creating a finite and temporal universe out of the void."