The first numeral zero comes from a Hindu astronomer and mathematician Brahmagupta in 628.
The first modern equivalent of the numeral zero comes from a Hindu astronomer and mathematician Brahmagupta in 628. His symbol to depict the numeral was a dot underneath a number. He also wrote standard rules for reaching zero through addition and subtraction and the results of operations that include the digit.
Zero as a symbol and a value
About 650 AD the mathematician Brahmagupta, amongst others, used small dots under numbers to represent a zero. The dots were known as 'sunya', which means empty, as well as 'kha', which means place. So their version of zero was seen as having a null value as well as being a placeholder.
Following this in the 7th century a man known as Brahmagupta, developed the earliest known methods for using zero within calculations, treating it as a number for the first time. The use of zero was inscribed on the walls of the Chaturbhuj temple in Gwalior, India.
Zero had already been invented in Brahmagupta's time, used as a placeholder for a base-10 number system by the Babylonians and as a symbol for a lack of quantity by the Romans. However, Brahmagupta reimagined the identity of zero: seeing it as a number on its own, rather than a simple symbol or placeholder.
In 628 CE, the Indian mathematician and astronomer Brahmagupta claimed that “zero divided by a zero is zero.” At around 850 CE, another Indian mathematician, Mahavira, more explicitly argued that any number divided by zero leaves that number unchanged, so then, for example, 24 ÷ 0 = 24.
It has existed since the Sumerians were chilling in southern Mesopotamia. But it emerged as a digit with value, with the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta giving it a role more significant than just a positional number. And after that, they say, there was no looking back for zero.
Aryabhatta (476-550 AD) an Indian mathematician invented zero as a digit.
NEW DELHI — Indian students are taught very early in school that India's contribution to the world of mathematics is zero. Way back in the 5th century, an Indian mathematician used zero in the decimal-based place-value system, an achievement that citizens here have always celebrated with pride.
Indian mathematicians are credited with developing the integer version, the Hindu–Arabic numeral system. Aryabhata of Kusumapura developed the place-value notation in the 5th century and a century later Brahmagupta introduced the symbol for zero.
He was the first to use zero as a number. He gave rules to compute with zero. Besides positive numbers, he used negative numbers and zero for computing. The modern rule that two negative numbers multiplied together equals a positive number first appears in Brahmasputa Siddhanta.
In geometry, Brahmagupta's theorem states that if a cyclic quadrilateral is orthodiagonal (that is, has perpendicular diagonals), then the perpendicular to a side from the point of intersection of the diagonals always bisects the opposite side. It is named after the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta (598-668).
The concept of zero is believed to have originated in the Hindu cultural and spiritual space around the 5th century CE. In Sanskrit, the word for zero is śūnya which refers to nothingness. In scientific history, astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata is often associated with inventing the number '0'.
Zero's origins most likely date back to the “fertile crescent” of ancient Mesopotamia. Sumerian scribes used spaces to denote absences in number columns as early as 4,000 years ago, but the first recorded use of a zero-like symbol dates to sometime around the third century B.C. in ancient Babylon.
In the 7th century, the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta used small dots to show the zero placeholder, but also recognized it as a number, with a null value that was called “sunya”. India's math spread to China and the Middle East cultures, where it was instrumental and developed further.
Romans and Egyptians had no such numeral either. A circle inscribed at a temple in Gwalior, India, dating to the ninth century, had been widely considered the oldest version of zero in our system, the Hindu-Arabic.
Answer: Aryabhatta is credited for using zero in the decimal system and introducing zero in mathematics. Brahmagupta, an astronomer and mathematician from India used zero in mathematical operations like addition and subtraction.
India: Where zero became a number
Some scholars assert that the Babylonian concept wove its way down to India, but others, including those at the Zero Project, give Indians credit for developing numerical zero independently.
The Indians also used a place-value system and zero was used to denote an empty place. In fact there is evidence of an empty place holder in positional numbers from as early as 200AD in India but some historians dismiss these as later forgeries.
Therefore it is said that Aryabhatta found zero.
We can call India the cradle of human civilization, the birthplace of speech, the mother of history and numerous languages, the grandmother of legends and traditions. Indians invented zero and the number system, one of the greatest innovations in history.
Hindu-Arabic numerals, set of 10 symbols—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0—that represent numbers in the decimal number system. They originated in India in the 6th or 7th century and were introduced to Europe through the writings of Middle Eastern mathematicians, especially al-Khwarizmi and al-Kindi, about the 12th century.
Moreover, If zero hadn't been discovered, we would have no algebra, no decimal system, no arithmetic, and most importantly — no computers! Even so, the significance of zero is seldom appreciated by us. We believe that its scope is limited just to mathematics.
Zero helps us understand that we can use math to think about things that have no counterpart in a physical lived experience; imaginary numbers don't exist but are crucial to understanding electrical systems. Zero also helps us understand its antithesis, infinity, in all of its extreme weirdness.
Early advances in sciences and math were brought about by the study & understanding of the natural world. Since zero does not exist in the natural world it is no surprise that it took thousands of years for civilization to conceptualize the numerical value of nothing.