The History of Zero

In today's modern mathematics, we have become accustomed to zero as a number. It's hard to
believe that most ancient number systems didn't include zero. The Mayan civilization may have
been among the first to have a symbol for zero. The Mayas flourished in the Yucatan peninsula
of Mexico about 1300 years ago. They used the as a placeholder, in a vertical place-value
system. It is considered one of their cultures greatest achievements.

The ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks alike had no symbol for zero. In Greek geometry,
zero and irrational numbers were impossible. The Greeks made great strides in mathematics, but
it was all done with a number system without zero. The Greek astronomer Ptolemy (ca. A.D.
150) was the first to write a zero at the end of a number. For this he used a circular symbol.

In ancient Babylonian history there was no use of the zero. In the later Babylonian or during the
Seleucid period a special symbol, which was also used as a separation mark between sentences,
came into use for a zero. There's a definite possibility that the Babylonians used this mark for a
zero within a number, as early as the end of the eighth century B.C. Up until the time of
Aristotle, there seems to be no evidence that the Babylonians ever regarded zero as a number.
Aristotle discussed division by zero in connection with speed through a vacuum.

Throughout the Dark Ages, Western mathematics was held back by the Roman's traditional
numbering system. The first to think differently was Leonardo Fibonacci. He was a merchant's
son, born in the Italian city-state Pisa, late in the twelfth century. In Pisa, he studied the work of
Euclid and other Greek mathematicians. When he was still a boy, he moved to the Muslim city
of Bugia, in North Africa. There he examined leather and furs before they were shipped back to
Pisa. Leonardo got an education in Arabic culture as he traveled around the Mediterranean to
Constantinople, Egypt and Syria. He recognized that the Hindu-Arabic numerals, the numerals
we use today, were superior to the Roman numerals he had grown up with in the West.

In the sixth century, mathematicians in India developed a place-value system. They introduced
the concept of zero to keep their symbols in their proper places. In the seventh century, Hindu
scholars introduced to Islam the ideas of zero and place-value. These ideas spread rapidly
throughout the Arabic world. Six centuries later, Fibonacci was so impressed with the ease of
Hindu-Arabic numerals that he wrote a book entitled Liber abaci.

The Pisan local merchants, the trading class, ignored Fibonacci's book. They were wallowing in
prosperity and did not want to be bothered with giving up Roman numerals and adopting a zero.
Ferbonacci's mathematician friends liked the new number system and slowly over time gave up
the Roman numerals. By the fifteenth century, the numerals were showing up on coins and
gravestones. Western mathematics had emerged from the Dark Ages, and was flourishing into a
new number system with a zero, the Hindu-Arabic numerals. The immediate advances in
mathematics after that time are proof of the importance of, the zero.

Question - For my next class I am teaching I need to know the following:

1.Who invented the # zero.
2.Where it was invented.
3. What happened.
4.Why they invented it.
5.How they invented it.
=========================================================
The nr. zero was invented independently in India and
by the Maya. In India a decimal system was used, like
ours, but they used an empty space for zero up to 3rd
Century BC. This was confusing for an empty space was
also used to separate numbers, and so they invented
the dot for a zero. The first evidence for the use of
the symbol that we now know as zero stems from the 7th
century AD. The Maya invented the number zero for
their calendars in the 3rd century AD.
The number zero reached European civilisation through
the Arabs after 800 AD. The Greek and Roman did not
need the number zero for they did their calculations
on an abacus. The name 'zero' comes from the arabic
'sifr'.
(Data from the book "the calender" by D. E. Duncan).

Dr. Wassenaar
=========================================================
Up-date: May, 2001

another theory about the origin or first use of the number zero
that is different from the theories presented in your URL,
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen99/gen99535.htm

The reference for the theory is on page 140, "The genius of China," authored
by Robert Temple (Introduced by Joseph Needham) and published by Simon &
Schuster Inc (1986).

I believe that information provided by ANL should be as accurate and as

complete as possible.

Thanks.

B.J. Hsieh
Argonne National Laboratory
=========================================================

Who invented the number name zero?

Answer
The number zero was invented independently in India and by the Maya. In India a
decimal system was used, like ours, but they used an empty space for zero up to
3rd Century BC. This was confusing for an empty space was also used to separate
numbers, and so they invented the dot for a zero. The first evidence for the use of
the symbol that we now know as zero stems from the 7th century AD. The Maya
invented the number zero for their calendars in the 3rd century AD. The number
zero reached European civilization through
the Arabs after 800 AD. The Greek and Roman did not need the number zero for
they did their calculations on an abacus. The name 'zero' comes from the Arabic
language.

Answer
It was invented by a Hindu mathematician Aryabhatta in India before 400 BC on the
basis of a vedik chant as below-
पूणरमदः पूणरिमदं पूणात् पूणरमुदचयते।
पूणरसय पूणरमादाय पूणरमेवाविशषयते॥

(http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_invented_the_number_name_zero)

That is Absolute, This is Absolute, Absolute arises out of Absolute

If Absolute is taken away from Absolute, Absolute remains. OM Peace, Peace, Peace.

Answer
the number zero was one of the last numbers invented beacause the ancient
egyptions never used them and not many other countries at the time used maths.
----

Answer
We are so accustomed with seeing the perfect circle, the zero that we cannot
imagine it had to be invented. In fact, the invention of zero was a real revolution.
In Babylon (modern Iraq), arabs had invented the "zero" during the 4th century BC.
But their numbering system was not transmitted to other people because of its
peculiarity: the first group (that of the units) was not made of 10, but 60 figures.
That corresponded to our system of time counting: one minute has 60 seconds, one
hour has 60 minutes

There were also arabs, that used the zero as we know today, between words. to
make sure you understood that the space was really empty there, they put a little
raised dot. Well dots are easy to miss, so to make it a little blacker, the scribe would
wiggle his pen around a little, which sometimes left a little hole in the middle of a
small circle.
So we see that the arabs used the function of the zero that we know today, but they
did not say it was a number.
One century after the Mayans, around the year 600 AD, Hindu savants invented too
the figure "zero". They also invented the position numbering. Arabs learned this
figure system from India. They even called them "Indian figures". During the 10th
century, these numbers (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9), slightly changed, were taken over
by the Europeans from the Arabs, like many other important items.

ORIGIN of Zero

Can you imagine yourself working on complicated mathematical equations in calculus or

trigonometry without using or even encountering the number zero? Do you think you can
perform messy and complex math problems in algebra – or even elementary arithmetic
operations – without facing the number zero at one point or another?

It would have been at least mildly interesting to perform square root extractions using Roman
numerals, but it would have been a lot of pain to do. So, while zero is taken to be synonymous
with the word “void” most of the time, the number zero makes our life in math more
smooth and easy.

Have you ever wondered whoever invented the number zero? No one knows for sure, but as
early as 2,000 BC, the Babylonians, who had been using a sexagesimal number system, had
represented the value that we now assign to the number and symbol of zero by a blank space.Â
In 300 BC, the usage of blank space was replaced by the Babylonians by double-slanted
wedges. This double-slanted wedge, however, was never used alone.

At perhaps the same time, the Mayans of Mesoamerica have used the figure zero in their long
calendars. The Hindus, on the other hand, had developed the earliest form of the decimal
system by the time and have used zero. The earliest use of the number zero was made by
Pingala.

The concept of the zero spread through the Arabian nations, through North Africa and through
Europe through trading. Zero was called “sunya” in Sanskrit, meaning “void.”Â
When the symbol came to the Arabs, “sunya” was translated into the Arabic “safira.”

he person generally credited to have brought the idea of zero to Europe was the
mathematician and philosopher Fibonacci, the author of the mathematical concept
Fibonacci’s Square. Fibonacci grew up in the Arabic North Africa. He
translated the Arabic “safira” to “zephyrum.” Zephyrum became
“zefiro” in Italian, and the Venetians further contracted the word into
“zero.”