History of the Number Zero

The story of zero refers to 'something can be made out of nothing'. This story is such a history of the development of an idea that has brought up the imaginativeness of many great minds across the globe throughout centuries (Kaplan and Seife).

Zero can be used for two purposes which are reasonably different from one another, and it has different aspects within the two uses for being a concept, a notion, a notation and a name. First, it can be used as a symbol to indicate an empty place in today's place value number system to describe the correct positioning of other numbers. For instance, the numbers 2011 and 211 represent two different numbers and have completely different sense. Secondly, zero is used in its form as a number itself i.e. 0. Both the above mentioned uses of zero have been exceedingly important. Yet, the two above described uses of zero cannot report historical evidence of creation of zero. It would not have been so easy for the term and idea behind the invention of the number to be widely accepted and used. The number and term zero has not been spontaneously derived concept. It took a huge period to develop the concept and use of zero as a name and a symbol (O'Connor and Robertson).

Zero as a number, symbol and a concept has been indeed important and is known possibly worldwide for its significant usage. The recognition, apprehension and functioning of zero has been the fundamental of the world now that today, zero fulfils a key role in mathematics as the real numbers, additive identity of the integers, and a lot of other algebraic structures. In addition, the concept of zero can be employed in calculus, accounting, finance, statistics, computers, and particularly in today's connected world. The development of zero from being merely a placeholder to the driver of calculus has crossed centuries, and involved diverse and extensively great cognitive thinking, both in extent and scope globally.

As a concept, zero indicates 'nothing' or 'naught'. "How can nothing be something?" is a question that ancient Greeks asked themselves. Records have shown that they seemed to be uncertain about the interpretation of zero as a number. The creation and status of zero has led to philosophical and religious arguments by Middle-ages (Bourbaki, 1998). As a matter of fact, today's Arabic number system has originated in India, but is comparatively newly developed. From the beginning, people have been labeling amounts and measures with a variety of figures and symbols throughout centuries, while facing difficulties in performing most elementary arithmetic computations with those number systems. A counting system had been first developed by the Sumerians as they wanted to mark and keep the accounts of the quantities of their goods such as cattle, horses, and donkeys. The drawback regarding the Sumerian system was that the system was positional which means that the positioning of a specific symbol as compared to others denoted its value. Around 2500 BC, Akkadians handed down The Sumerian system and in 2000 BC, the same was done by the Babylonians. The evolution of zero seems to have initiated from the Babylonians which has crossed may centuries and was very different from the symbol know to us today. Babylonians were the first to ideate a mark to to make it realized that a number had been missing from a column. For instance, 0 in the number 2011 expresses that there are no hundreds in that number. By that time zero did not have any symbol to denote the space.

Although Ancient Greeks have brought many famous mathematicians who learned the basic principles of their mathematics from the Egyptians and they had a number system, but that system lacked a placeholder like the one of Babylonians so they could not suggest a name to indicate that empty space. They might have contemplated the name to denote that place between numbers, but there is no such evidence to draw conclusion that the symbol even included in their language. So it shows that primitively, the Indians began to realize zero both as a symbol and as an idea (Kaplan and Seife). Whereas some suggest that in Ancient Greeks times, astronomers had used symbol O for recording their astronomical data.

For the first time around 650 AD, Brahmagupta validated arithmetic operations with the application of zero. The mathematician practiced dots beneath numbers to point the presence of a zero. Such intended dots were alternately called as 'sunya' or 'kha'. (Sunya means empty and kha means place) (Kaplan and Seife). In Indian Culture, a dot (.) was used to denote zero between numbers. Brahmagupta set up basic principles and standardized rules for getting to zero through with summation and subtraction as well as the outcomes of mathematical operations involving zero. The rules established by the Indian mathematician lacked in one aspect which was 'division by zero error'.

Later on, zero got to be known to Middle East by the attempt of great Arabian voyagers who traded spices and other unusual foreign items. They brought the texts of Brahmagupta and his colleagues back from India to Middle East. By 773 AD, Zeros arrived at Baghdad and modernized and developed there by Arabian mathematicians, who had founded their number systems on the basis of Indian system. For the first time in the ninth century, when zero came to be known in Middle East, Mohammed ibn-Musa Al-Khwarizmi worked on equations that were equivalent to zero and on algebra. The person was the founder of algorithm which was a straightaway method for multiplying and dividing numbers and the name algorithm was formulated as a corruption of the mathematician's name. Al-Khwarizmi was the first who called zero 'sifr', which the word 'cipher' is derived from. Zero was completely known and written in the form which it is present today like oval shaped 0, by 879 AD, but it was a bit smaller than the other numbers.

By the middle of the twelfth century, zero arrived at Europe through with the conquest of Spain by the Moors and transformations of Al-Khwarizmi's body of work on algorithms had also migrated to England where the work was undertaken and progressed by an Italian mathematician, Fibonacci. In 1202, The Italian Mathematician reposed on Al-Khwarizmi's work with algorithms in his book named Liber Abaci, or "Abacus book". Till that time, the abacus had been the most predominant instrument to perform arithmetic functioning and processes. Soon, many Italian merchants and German bankers observed and considered useful Fibonacci's developments, especially the function of zero. These development helped accountants to balance their books in a way that the positive and negative totals of the assets and liabilities equaled zero.

Rene Descartes was the founder of the Cartesian coordinate system and served as the next great mathematician to use zero. The mathematician developed Descartes' origin is (0,0) for use in graphs for drawing triangles or parabolas. By that time, zero had become common to a greater extent. The division by zero error which confused Brahmagupta and development of calculus were undertaken as a challenge by Isaac Newton and G.W. Leibniz after that. Newton and Leibniz solved the problem of division by zero at their own and unfolded enormous hypotheses to the world regarding the use of zero, in the 1600's. The mathematicians approach to zero has led tremendous working with numbers which resulted in formulation of calculus concept on the basis of which major fields such as physics, engineering, finance and economics have developed.

By the twenty-first century zero has become commonly and widely used and so familiar that today talking about it seems like talking about nothing. Precisely, it is the apprehension and working of renowned mathematicians with this nothing that has provided civilization to progress to become rich and developed. Zero has been made one of the keenest achievements of human society by the creation and development of zero across centuries, minds, and continents. In today's world of technology and globalization, zero is extant and put to use everywhere as math is a global language and field, and calculus its crowning accomplishment. However, its function as a symbol and a concept has meant to refer to absence of something. This reasoned that zero may still appear to be like nothing at all.

Works Cited

Bourbaki, Nicolas. Elements of the History of Mathematics. Berlin, Heidelberg, and New York: Springer-Verlag.

Kaplan, Robert. The Nothing that Is: A Natural History of Zero. New York: Oxford University Press. (2000).

O'Connor J J and Robertson E F., A history of Zero (2000).

Seife, Charles. Zero: The Biography (2000).