This is an extension to my previous article on “Aryabhata and his work” and a subsequent query on ‘who invented zero?’

There are many articles recently disputed the popular known facts on this. Most Indians and the world believed that ‘Aryabhata’, a well-known mathematician during 400-500 CE invented the number ‘0’ (zero).

However, it is untrue that he or any Western mathematician invented the number ‘zero’.

Ancient History: The reality is the concept of ‘zero’ or ‘shunya’ or शुन्य was invented at least 17000 years ago in ancient India. It was associated with null, void, empty or meditative state. This was a position before anything started.

However, there was no evidence of negative number to show that this was the position between positive and negative.

The concept of ‘shunya’ was mentioned in Shiv Linga (the beginning), the concept of Shunya was mentioned in mediation (void), the concept of ‘shunya’ was also mentioned in

Picture source:http://vedic-gyaan.blogspot.hk/2015/02/why-hindus-worship-shiv-linga.html

In advaitya Vedant the term is used as term "anutpāda"

"An" means "not", or "non", "Utpāda" means "genesis", "coming forth", "birth"

The Sumerian system had zero as placeholder around 2000 BC. However, there is no record of mentioning it with any symbol or rules of zero or usage of it other than basic counting.

Modern History:

In modern history, it was Aryabhata who used “kha” for position zero or gave “0” as sign for digit to express this void position. In addition to this, he was first to define the decimal system. Many may disagree with Aryabhata’s contribution, however, French mathematician George Ifrah arugus that knowledge of zero was implicit in Aryabhata place-value system as a placeholder for the powers of ten with null coefficients.

Later this number system i.e. 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 and 0 spread to Europe in 11^th century though Islamic nations and East to China. Khwarizmi, a famous Arab mathematician, mentioned this number system in his famous work Al ‘Khwarizmi in 773, Ch’in Chiu-Shao, a famous Chinese mathematician used in 1247, Fibonacci, an Italian mathematician introduced it to Europe in 12^th century. All have referred above Hindu (Indian) number system.

Fibonacci who was influenced by Indian mathematics stated, “If I have perchance omitted anything more or less proper or necessary, I beg indulgence, since there is no one who is blameless and utterly provident in all things. The nine Indian figures are: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. With these nine figures, and with the sign 0 ... any number may be written.”

Although Aryabhata used and defined the position i.e. ten position preceding to 10, but the rules of zero such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and other elementary mathematical operations with zero were defined by Brahmagupta in his main work “Brahmasputha Siddhanta” in 7^th century. Except the division of zero which he couldn’t get it clearly or lost it in interpretation, we use the almost all the rules related to zero in modern mathematics and science which was later defined by Newton and Leibniz independently in 16^thcentury in Europe.

Without hesitation, I would say that without having clear rules on how to use zero, no real progress would have been possible in modern science because physics, chemistry, astronomy, computer science, economics and finance are all based on it!!

Let us express gratitude towards Aryabhata for initializing the work, Brahmagupta for defining the major part of research to create a strong foundation and Newton et al for completing it with their rule for ‘division’.

Watch out this space for my next article on one of the greatest ancient mathematicians – Brahmagupta and his work.

References:

1.     A history of Zero written by J J O'Connor and E F Robertson

http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/who-invented-the-zero

2.     How was zero discovered?

Scholarly article written by Nils-Bertil Wallin in YaleGlobal, 19 November 2002

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

4.     Sigler, L., Fibonacci's Liber Abaci. English translation, Springer, 2003.

5.     Jump up 
^ Grimm, R.E., "The Autobiography of Leonardo Pisano", Fibonacci Quarterly 11/1 (February 1973), pp. 99–104.

6.     http://vedic-gyaan.blogspot.hk/2015/02/why-hindus-worship-shiv-linga.html

7.     Other research data.