The History of the Number 0

The first recorded numbering systems appeared between 5000 and 4000 BCE in Sumeria, then located in Mesopotamia. In addition to developing a counting system, the Sumerians also developed the standard minute and hour, using sexigesimal (based on 60) counting. However, the Sumerian system never recognized zero as a number, and no set placeholders for numbers like 60, 605, or 10,500 have been agreed upon.

The Babylonians, another Mesopotamian civilization, inherited their numerical ideas from the Sumerians. However, the Babylonians took it one step further. Using a character that resembled two wedged lines placed perpendicular to each other, the Babylonian numerical system finally found a placeholder for the zeroes in numbers like 10, 605, and 10,500. Although they filled a numerical column that zero now occupies, the Babylonians never thought of zero as a number of its own.

Usually in the case of famous historical concepts, three cultures played some part in their development: the Chinese, the Greeks, and the Egyptians. However, none of these ancient cultures recognized zero as a number. The Chinese invented a bamboo system that only recognized the numbers one through nine. The Greeks picked up their mathematical system from the Egyptians, who also failed to recognize zero or use any sort of placeholder for numbers like 100.

While most of the early development of the number zero took place over in the Middle East, it also appeared independently in the Americas. Sometime around 350 CE, the Mayan people began using zero in their calendar system. However, some posit that pre-Mayan civilizations began using zero as a placeholder starting in 36 BCE, citing the fact that these people made calculations in the millions and would need a placeholder to make these calculations.

The first depiction of the number zero appears on a stone stele that archeologists dated to 683 CE. This stele is a remnant of early Cambodian culture, and contains a description of a purchase that included slaves, rice, and oxen. More importantly, the date, which read as 605 CE due to the records of the time, contained an actual zero and not a placeholder. Before this stone stele was discovered, the oldest known zero appeared inside an Indian temple.

Prior to the Cambodian find, a temple in Gwalior, India, held the oldest known inscription of the number zero. Archaeologists studying the temple date its construction to 876 CE. The temple’s dedication tablet, embedded in a wall of the structure, contains a zero in two different places – notating how many garlands of flowers villagers daily gave to the temple god, Chatur-bhuja, and the amount of land the temple stood upon.

Brahmagupta, an early Indian mathematician, was the first person to utilize zero as something more than a placeholder or calendar number. In the 7th century CE, he came up with several rules explaining how the “sum of nothing” worked in mathematics, including some still IN use today, such as:

“When zero is added to a number or subtracted from a number, the number remains unchanged. A number multiplied by zero becomes zero.”

Muhammed ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi lived during 9th century CE in what is today considered Baghdad. Using the rules that Brahmagupta and other Indian mathematicians put into place for the number zero, al-Khwarizmi became the first to use zero in algebraic equations. His book of mathematical ideas, Al-Kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-jabr waʾl-muqābala, which translates to The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing, coined the term “algebra.” By the 12th century, copies of the book made their way to Europe, where they were translated into Latin, introducing his ideas to people in the West.