"The history of zero is a bit complicated."
I see what you did there
The oldest "0" in India for which one can assign a definite date
11–20 of 31 posts
Re: The oldest "0" in India for which one can assign a definite date
#12"New numbers" are invented to complete a group for a particular arithmetic operation. Zero is not necessary the addition operation because all cardinals one and above suffice. Zero is created for the subtraction operation of a cardinal with itself. There were empty place holders signs in place-number systems of Babylonia and ancent China that function like our zero numeral. But this placeholder did not enter arithmet…
>At some point in medevial times each of these new numbers were considered the work of the Devil because they did not have concrete existance in the physical world.
Really? Do you have a cite for this? It sounds made up.
Re: The oldest "0" in India for which one can assign a definite date
#13So if 0 wasn't a concept, you couldn't count to 10? I'm not sure I understand. I thought the significance of 0 was the recognition of an absence of existence. Just because numbers use 0 (270, 50, 20, etc.) wouldn't seem to indicate that it was understood at that significance...
No, the problem is not '0' not being a concept. There are two issues here, which are related but not the same. The conecpt of 'nothingness' is irrelevant to both: 1) Dealing with '0' as an ordinary number. 2) Using a positional number system, which requires a symbol or context for telling '1230' from '1023' and '1203', etc. One tends to think that solving the first issue leads to the second. Solving the second implie…
would it be fair to differentiate the two concepts as:
1. using "0" as a digit
2. using "0" as a number
Re: The oldest "0" in India for which one can assign a definite date
#14A recent article of related interest is the story of the recovery of the oldest datable inscription that shows a numeral zero used in base-ten place-value notation, "How I Rediscovered the Oldest Zero in History,"
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2013/05/20/how-i-redi...
which links to the article kindly submitted here.
The submission title here is NOT the original article title, as preferred by the Hacker News guidelines, and the other recent article suggests that the title shown on the submission here is not fully accurate for all regions of the world.
Re: The oldest "0" in India for which one can assign a definite date
#15OT: in Arabic Zero is "Ciphr" or "Cipher" where we get the words decipher or cipher from.
Re: The oldest "0" in India for which one can assign a definite date
#16I'm not sure what the article claims here. This is the first dated inscription but the positional arabic notation (with a zero like glyph) had been in use for at least 300 years earlier. If you consider other place value systems the concept of a 'separator' goes back much farther.
This isn't necessarily evidence that they understood zero as a number as opposed to a concept. By 1000 in Europe they used a symbol as a placeholder that looked superficially similar to our modern glyph of zero. When explaining it, however, it was clear it was simply a placeholder that could always be omitted and was "sometimes useful" and was absolutely not really a number. It isn't clear that the glyph used here or in Europe was anything more than an elaborate 'dot.' It certainly didn't seem to be be transmitted as a recognizable glpyh but each culture rendered it in the way most convenient as a counting and placeholder aid.
Re: The oldest "0" in India for which one can assign a definite date
#17"The history of zero is a bit complicated." I see what you did there
I see what you did there.
Re: The oldest "0" in India for which one can assign a definite date
#18"New numbers" are invented to complete a group for a particular arithmetic operation. Zero is not necessary the addition operation because all cardinals one and above suffice. Zero is created for the subtraction operation of a cardinal with itself. There were empty place holders signs in place-number systems of Babylonia and ancent China that function like our zero numeral. But this placeholder did not enter arithmet…
>At some point in medevial times each of these new numbers were considered the work of the Devil because they did not have concrete existance in the physical world. Really? Do you have a cite for this? It sounds made up.
I can't speak for math, but I know that a few centuries ago, certain musical notes were regarded as 'The Devil's Music':
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritone#Historical_uses http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4952646.stm
Re: The oldest "0" in India for which one can assign a definite date
#19"New numbers" are invented to complete a group for a particular arithmetic operation. Zero is not necessary the addition operation because all cardinals one and above suffice. Zero is created for the subtraction operation of a cardinal with itself. There were empty place holders signs in place-number systems of Babylonia and ancent China that function like our zero numeral. But this placeholder did not enter arithmet…
>At some point in medevial times each of these new numbers were considered the work of the Devil because they did not have concrete existance in the physical world. Really? Do you have a cite for this? It sounds made up.
Especially since under neoplatonic thought lots of things are considered more real because they lack physical existence.
Re: The oldest "0" in India for which one can assign a definite date
#20OT: in Arabic Zero is "Ciphr" or "Cipher" where we get the words decipher or cipher from.
In many romance languages it is the root of the word we use for digit. It, es: cifra, fr: chiffre, ro: cifrǎ. In Portuguese the word is algarismo and it comes from al-Khwārizmī [0], who gives the name to algorithm as well.