ZERO

The concept Zero played a major role in seeing the growth of higher mathematics which is a major step in the history of mankind. Zero is also a synonym of the word none. Although there are many stories that surround the invention of the number zero, studies show that the number was invented by a group of people from the Mayan civilization. At that time, the decimal system was in use just as it is today only that a space was left to indicate a zero up until the third century BC. The other version of the story is that, it was invented by the Indian mathematician and astronomer, ARYABHATTA, around 9th century C.E. There is also a claim that tracks the invention of zero back to 300 B.C in Babylon. All these inventions were independently made and were not connected. The empty space was very confusing because it was also used for the separation for numbers. That brought about the dot to stand in place of a zero. The first time the zero symbol was evidently used can be traced to the seventh century AD. The Maya made the number zero invention specifically for the calendars used during the third century AD. Evidence of number zero was not realized in the Europe civilization up until after eight hundred AD from the Arabs who were coming to trade. The Romans and Greeks used the abacus to carry out their calculations and did not therefore need the number zero. The zero name was derived from the Arabic language.


By the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, the Babylonian mathematics had a sophisticated sexagesimal positional numeral system. The lack of a positional value was indicated by a space between sexagesimal numerals. By 300 BC, a punctuation symbol was co-opted as a placeholder in the same Babylonian system. In a tablet unearthed at Kish, the scribe Bel-ban-aplu wrote his zeros with three hooks, rather than two slanted wedges. The Babylonian placeholder was not a true zero because it was not used alone. Nor was it used at the end of a number. Thus numbers like 2 and 120, 3 and 180, 4 and 240, looked the same because the larger numbers lacked a final sexagesimal placeholder. Only context could differentiate them.

Records show that the ancient Greeks seemed unsure about the status of zero as a number. They asked themselves "How can nothing be something? leading to philosophical and by the Medieval period, religious arguments about the nature and existence of zero and the vacuum. The paradoxes of Zeno of Elea depend in large part on the uncertain interpretation of zero.
The concept of zero as a number and not merely a symbol for separation is attributed to India where by the 9th century AD practical calculations were carried out using zero, which was treated like any other number, even in case of division. The Indian scholar Pingala used binary numbers in the form of short and long syllables, making it similar to Morse code. He and his contemporary Indian scholars used the Sanskrit word sunya to refer to zero or void. The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar developed in south-central Mexico and Central America required the use of zero as a place-holder within its vigesimal positional numeral system. Many different glyphs, including this partial quatrefoil——were used as a zero symbol for these Long Count dates, the earliest of which has a date of 36 BC. Since the eight earliest Long Count dates appear outside the Maya homeland, it is assumed that the use of zero in the Americas predated the Maya and was possibly the invention of the Olmecs. Many of the earliest Long Count dates were found within the Olmec heartland, although the Olmec civilization ended by the 4th century BC, several centuries before the earliest known Long Count dates.
Although zero became an integral part of Maya numerals, it did not influence Old World numeral systems.
Quipu, a knotted cord device, used in the Inca Empire and its predecessor societies in the Andean region to record accounting and other digital data, is encoded in a base ten positional system. Zero is represented by the absence of a knot in the appropriate position.The use of a blank on a counting board to represent 0 dated back in India to 4th century BC. In China, counting rods were used for decimal calculation since the 4th century BC including the use of blank spaces. Chinese mathematicians understood negative numbers and zero, some mathematicians used for the latter, until Gautama Siddha introduced the symbol 0. The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, which was mainly composed in the 1st century AD, stated "subtract same signed numbers, add differently signed numbers, subtract a positive number from zero to make a negative number and subtract a negative number from zero to make a positive number.