The Babylonians invented the concept of zero. The ancient Greeks debated it in lofty terms "how could something be nothing?". The ancient Indian scholar Pingala paired zero with the numeral 1 to get double digits. Mayans and Romans made zero part of their numeral systems. But zero really found its place about AD 498, when the Indian astronomer Aryabhata sat up in bed one morning and exclaimed, "Sthanam stahanam dasa dunam" - which translates, roughly, as "Place to place in 10 times in value." With that, the idea of decimal-based place-value notation was born. Now zero was on a roll. It spread to the Arab world, where it flourished. Crossed the Iberian Peninsula to Europe, thanks to the Spanish Moors. Got some tweaking from the Italians and eventually sailed the Atlantic to the New World, where zero ultimately found plenty of employment together with 1 in place called Sillicon Valley.
(from Dan Arielly's "Predictably Irrational")
Great Post. Ancient times india had a great talent and technology.
You should be wondered if you see the temples construction.
Agree. India's history is rich and lot of great minds came from India that contributed great deal in many areas of arts and sciences.
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Good, we need more history of mathematics to help understand where ideas have come from.
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I've been scrolling, trying to figure out what to read. This caught my eye. I used to love math in school. Pretty interesting.
I was reading Predictably Irrational and made me think of butterfly effect and how much Zero added value to our civilizations. and how far we have come. Thanks for comment.
Interesting article. I never realized there was a time without zero.
As a concept it has always been there, but as a utility it had to evolve through time.