The first evidence of a zero in mathematics was found 5000
years ago in
Mesopotamia. It was represented in cuneiform symbols and displayed as two small
triangle wedges in between other cuneiform symbols. This representation was
placed in a
sequence to indicate where a positioning number was absent. The zero we are
accustomed to came into existence rather late in about 200A.D.
Zero as we know it was conceived by Hindus from India. Hindus were first to
recognize a mathematical representation of the concept of no quantity to
represent the
absence of any object and this concept was accompanied by this late appearance
of the
number, that is the second significant fact , namely, that zero must be
established from
nothingness. For example, a person’s grade in a course he never took is no grade
or
nothing. But he may however have a grade of zero. Hindus originally used a dot
to
represent zero, but later used a small circle .
The symbol representation itself seems to take on different appearances
throughout time as well as changing into a positional notation, made its way to
Babylonian Empire and from there to India, via the Greeks, where zero made a
late and
occasional appearances, while the Romans had no trace of it at all. Arab
merchants
brought the zero they found in India to the west. After many adventures and much
opposition, the symbol we used was accepted and the concept flourished as zero
took on
much more than a positional meaning. Zero as a symbol enables us to use symbols
to
represent that nothing is left. Since then it has played a vital role in the
mathematics of
the world.
Some other regions that zero progressed to are steady from the first recorded
zero
appearing in Mesopotamia around 300 B.C. The Mayans independently invented the
concept of zero as a number about 400 A.D. but it did not leave South America.
It was
later devised in India in the mid-fifth century, spread to Cambodia near the end
of the
seventh century and into china and the Islamic countries at the end of the
eighth. Zero
reached Western Europe In the 12th century, but traces of zero are found in
Spain as early
as 976 A.D. However, the positional concept only emerged in four places: 2000
B.C in
Babylon; around the start of the Common Era in China; between the fourth and
ninth
centuries A.D. among the Mayan astronomer priests; and in India.
This number hasn’t always been a part of mathematics. While numbers have been
in existence since the Babylonians, zero is a very recent development. Although,
it was
the Babylonians that used a zero digit in a positional or place value holder
system,
meaning a relative position of a digit enters into de termining its value,
starting in
700B.C., they did not have a concept of zero as its own entity. The concept of
zero was
established by Brahmagupta in 628 A.D. Zero was now a number but they did not
write
it as 0. They used the Latin word nullus, which means nothing.
Interestingly, zero had become the basis for our current number system, the
decimal system , where ten is called the base. Our modern way of counting is
positional
because the value of a character depends on the position of zero.
The progression of zero has been very helpful in solving quadratic equations for
example. John Napier, was contemplating a quadratic in the form of: x2 + 2x =
24.
Napier realized for working out the value of x he could use the form of the
equation: x2 +
2x - 24 = 0. Therefore the latter transformation of the term could be worked out
to read:
(4 - x)(x+6) = 0, so now either, 4x equals zero, which x = 4 or (x+6) equals zero
and x = 6.
This strategy of using zero in his equations is being practiced currently in our
present day
to solve quadratics as Napier did in this example.
Another example depicting how zero has nestled its way significantly into our
mathematical system is that of rounding numbers. For example, to round 6283 to
the
nearest tenths place, you place a zero in the ones place . So, the proper
notation for this
would read 6280.
In fact, with the availability of zero, mathematicians were finally able to
develop
our present method of whole numbers. First of all we count in units and
represent large
quantities in tens, tens of tens, tens of tens of tens, etc. Therefore, we
represent one
hundred twenty-three by 123. The left hand ‘1’ means one tens of tens, the ‘2’
means
two times ten and the three means three units. The concept of zero makes such a
system
of writing quantities practical since it enables us to distinguish ‘11’ from
‘101’.
The development of zero has been that of a long road, but
a significant
accomplishment in mathematics and a somewhat pivotal experience all together.
