In the beginning there was ZERO
and it was null
The origin of zero
Prehistoric man did count.
Whether with marks on
the cave wall or grooves
on a stick. He counted
the seasons, the number
of deer killed in the last
hunt, and the members
of his tribe. He had no
need to count zero
mammoths
The Siriona Indians of Bolivia use the word
many for anything larger than 3.The Bacari
and Bororo use what amounts to a base two
number system, counting “1,2”, “1,2”.
But because nature saw
fit to give us five fingers
on each hand, most
ancient peoples used a
base five counting
system. It is probably
because of the fact that
we have ten fingers total
that led to our use of a
base ten counting
system.
The Egyptians, Greeks, and
Romans all used different
symbols for different
numbers. These symbols
were grouped together to
form larger numbers. The
arrangement was not
important, the meaning was
the same. Zero had no value
and was not necessary to
these cultures.
It was the Babylonians who
first introduced a symbol for
zero. They used a base sixty
counting system, which they
calculated with another of
their inventions, the abacus.
But because the symbol for
60 and the symbol for 3600
were the same, their written
numbers needed a symbol to
show their placement on the
abacus. So zero was born in
the symbol
So, 64 was written
And
3604 was written with
the zero
top: 64 (1 sixty + 4 ones)
ottom: 3604 (1 sixty2 + 0 sixty + 4 ones)
At this point the only purpose of zero was as a
placeholder, very much the way we use it
today to distinguish 11 from 101.
The Ancient Mayans
also used zero as a
placeholder for their
base twenty numeration.
Unlike the Babylonians,
zero had a numerical
value of its own and
they began counting
with zero.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Nearly every culture has a creation myth or
story, and most begin with an empty void and
churning chaos. This concept was frightening
to the western mind, so while the idea of zero
spread and was used throughout the east, it
was resisted and even called evil in the west.
And what would have been its purpose
anyway. You can add 0+0 but you still have 0.
There were many great Greek mathematicians, but all
rejected both the theory of the infinite and the void on
religious grounds. Aristotle declared that each of the
planets is imbedded in its own clear orb revolving in
succession around the central planet earth, each
spherical crystal turning the one before. The final orb
was a dark blue crystal imbedded with the stars. The
entire universe was contained within this system. The
fact the last orb too turned Aristotle said was proof of
God’s existence. There was no void.
When Christianity began
to make its way through
Europe Aristotle’s
theory spread with it
and was embraced by
the church.
During the middle ages
there were very few
literates, other than the
Christian monks. The
Church being based in
Rome, used both the Roman
calendar and Roman
numerals which have no
zero. The Church saw God
as representing all things
and to speak of null and
void was heresy.
In India where it is
believed that all creation
came from the void, and
the goal of the soul is to
return to the void and
the creator, the concept
of null was easily
accepted.
So, when Alexander the Great brought the Babylonian
idea of zero as a place holder it was accepted and taken
one step further. They used a base ten number system
and assigned zero a numerical value. The numerical
system we use today evolved from this system. This
acceptance of the number zero allowed the Indian
mathametians to develop another new concept, ”the
negative number”. If zero had a numerical vale then you
could have less than zero, as in 2-3=-1.
In the seventh century AD the
Arabic Empire began its
conquest, spreading from Egypt,
Syria, Persia and Jerusalem, to the
Indus River in the east and the
Algiers in the West. By the
middle of the eighth century they
were in control of Spain and India
and China, absorbing the wisdom
of the people they conquered
along with the Indian numerical
system.
In the twelfth century, Maimonides, a Jewish
mathematician and Rabbi living in a Spain
under Muslin rule declared that Aristotle was
wrong. For Aristotle the universe had always
existed. Maimonides said this contradicted the
Bible, which stated that God created the world
out a void. Now Zero became acceptable to
Jewish scholars as well.
The final resistance to zero was
broken during the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. Peasants,
noblemen, monks, and even
children went off to fight the
infidels. Many never to return, but
those who did brought with them
Eastern ideas, as well as silks and
leprosy. In 1277 Tempier, a bishop
in Paris, declared that to say that
God could not create from a void
was to say that God was not all
powerful. Zero was beginning to
gain acceptance in the west.
Fibonacci, an Italian educated in
North Africa, learned Arabic
mathematics and introduced them to
the western world in his book,
“Liber Abaci”, published in 1202.
Italian bankers and merchants found
Arabic numbers and calculation so
much easier than previous methods
that they accepted it and zero
immediately.
The government and Church still resisted this
change and in 1299 Florence outlawed the
use of Arabic numerals on the grounds that
the numbers were too easily altered.
Businessmen continued to use them, even
using them to send code messages. Now
zero and Arabic numerals were an accepted
form of calculation .
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“zero, The Biography of a Dangerous Idea” by Charles Siefe
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