What is the story behind 0?

Zero's origins
It's likely that the origins of zero go as far back as ancient Mesopotamia and spaces were used by Sumerian scribes to show absences in number columns around four thousand years ago. However the first time we have a record of a symbol that resembles zero is in Babylon during the third century BC.

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What is the history behind zero?

In the 800s AD, Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khowarizimi was the first to work on equations that would equal zero. He called the zero, “sifr,” which means empty. And by 879 AD the zero was written as “0.” It would take a few centuries before the concept of zero would spread to Europe.

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Who created the number 0?

"Zero and its operation are first defined by [Hindu astronomer and mathematician] Brahmagupta in 628," said Gobets. He developed a symbol for zero: a dot underneath numbers.

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Why was the number zero so important?

Zero helps us understand and explain concepts that do not have physical forms! The number zero is used as a placeholder in the place value system. For example, two zeros before a number indicate a hundred position, while a single zero before a digit indicates a tens position.

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What would happen if 0 didn't exist?

Having no zero would unleash utter chaos in the world. Maths would be different ball game altogether, with no fractions, no algebra and no calculus. A number line would go from -1 to 1 with nothing bridging the gap. Zero as a placeholder has lots of value and without it a billion would simply be “1”.

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What is Zero? Getting Something from Nothing - with Hannah Fry

20 related questions found

Why is 0 the most powerful number?

The number 0 is also known as “Universal Energy” hence it's also known as an “Angel number”. The number 0 represents unlimited possibilities and shows that you are satisfied in life. As zero means “emptiness” yet contains everything in it. “Emptiness to Fullness / Wholeness”.

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What was 0 originally called?

In pre-Islamic time the word ṣifr (Arabic صفر) had the meaning "empty". Sifr evolved to mean zero when it was used to translate śūnya (Sanskrit: शून्य) from India. The first known English use of zero was in 1598.

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Did China invent 0?

From India, the zero made its way to China and back to the Middle East, where it was taken up by the mathematician Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khowarizmi around 773. He studied and synthesized Indian arithmetic and showed how zero functioned in the system of formulas he called 'al-jabr'—today known as algebra.

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Why was zero invented?

It was thought, and sometimes still is, that the number zero was invented in the pursuit of ancient commerce. Something was needed as a placeholder; otherwise, 65 would be indistinguishable from 605 or 6050. The zero represents “no units” of the particular place that it holds.

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Who invented zero and why?

About 773 AD the mathematician Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khowarizmi was the first to work on equations that were equal to zero (now known as algebra), though he called it 'sifr'. By the ninth century the zero was part of the Arabic numeral system in a similar shape to the present day oval we now use.

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When did zero exist?

"The one that we got the zero from came from the Fertile Crescent." It first came to be between 400 and 300 B.C. in Babylon, Seife says, before developing in India, wending its way through northern Africa and, in Fibonacci's hands, crossing into Europe via Italy.

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How did zero get his name?

A key character in the book Holes is Zero. His real name is Hector Zeroni, and he is sent to Camp Green Lake. He gets the nickname, in part, because of his perceived lack of intelligence. The other characters originally do not think much of Zero, and he is thought to be unintelligent.

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Does 0 exist in nature?

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.

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What was used before 0 was invented?

About 1,500 years ago in India a symbol was used to represent an abacus column with nothing in it. At first this was just a dot; later it became the '0' we know today. In the 8th century the great Arab mathematician, al-Khwarizmi, took it up and the Arabs eventually brought the zero to Europe.

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How was the world before zero was invented?

What was life like before we had zero? The ancient Greeks and Egyptians had no zero. They used completely different symbols for 9, 90, 900 and so on. This system has a couple of big disadvantages.

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Who used zero first in world?

Robert Kaplan, author of The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero and former professor of mathematics at Harvard University, provides this answer: The first evidence we have of zero is from the Sumerian culture in Mesopotamia, some 5,000 years ago.

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Why is 0 a factorial of 1?

Factorial of a number in mathematics is the product of all the positive numbers less than or equal to a number. But there are no positive values less than zero so the data set cannot be arranged which counts as the possible combination of how data can be arranged (it cannot). Thus, 0! = 1.

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Who invented pi?

The first recorded algorithm for rigorously calculating the value of π was a geometrical approach using polygons, devised around 250 BC by the Greek mathematician Archimedes. This polygonal algorithm dominated for over 1,000 years, and as a result π is sometimes referred to as Archimedes's constant.

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What is the oldest record of 0?

The oldest known reference to zero as a numerical value to signify 'nothing' was by the Indian mathematician and astronomer Brahmagupta, in his great work of 628 AD, the Brahmasphutasiddhanta.

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What is the oldest record of zero?

Scientists from the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries, have used carbon dating to trace the figure's origins to the famous ancient Indian scroll, the Bakhshali manuscript. The text dates back to the third or fourth century, making it the oldest recorded use of the symbol.

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Who invented infinity?

Infinity is a mathematical concept originating from Zeno of Elia (~450 BC) who tried to show its “physical” impossibility. This resulted in the “arrow paradox”, but which was solved later on. Many mathematicians and physicists went on to try understanding infinity and to explain it by various theories and experiments.

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Is 0 an evil number?

However, the term "evil" is also used to denote nonnegative integers that have an even number of 1s in their binary expansions, the first few of which are 0, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 15, 17, 18, 20, ... (OEIS A001969), illustrated above as a binary plot. Numbers that are not evil are then known as odious numbers.

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Why was the number 0 banned for 1500 years?

In 1299, zero was banned in Florence, along with all Arabic numerals. In 1299, zero was banned in Florence, along with all Arabic numerals, because they were said to encourage fraud.

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Why is zero a circle?

In mathematics, the number 0, or simply zero, most likely derived its shape from the sun and the moon. Many have ascribed divine qualities to circles. The study of the circle eventually led to the development of astronomy, geometry and calculus.

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Does 0.99999 equal 1?

This number is equal to 1. In other words, "0.999..." is not "almost exactly" or "very, very nearly but not quite" 1 – rather, "0.999..." and "1" represent exactly the same number. The repeating decimal continues infinitely.

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