Origin Of Zero

6 Pages 1609 Words

Introduction
Throughout the history of man's intellectual development and expansion of his understanding of the world around him, there has been a gradual unification of seemingly disjoint areas of knowledge: art and religion, biology and psychology, and so on. Mathematics and philosophy are two areas of knowledge that have also developed through such a symbiotic relationship; many historically renowned mathematicians, such as Rene Descartes, are also known for advancing their own philosophical ideas, such as Descarte's famous dictum, Cogito ergo sum.
However, on the whole, it is not terribly common for a concept or idea in one field to spawn another idea or concept in another field, especially in the case of mathematics and philosophy, since one field is the basis for virtually all of man's scientific advancements, while the other is a cornerstone for virtually all of man's spiritual development. This is not to say that there are no such occurrences in these two areas. In fact, one of the most important developments in the entire history of mathematics had its roots in the teachings of one of the most influential religions in the world today. The invention of the number zero and the subsequent development of a written representation for the number zero, which is considered by many scholars to be among the most influential and important developments in mathematics, had its beginnings in the philosophies of various religious figures in the Indian civilization over two thousand years ago.
It came from India...
Although the identity of the actual inventors of the number zero is highly contested by scholars of today, most scholars agree that the number zero and the circular symbol which represents this number originated in India approximately during the ninth century. However, there is good reason to believe that the concept of the number zero, if not the symbol for zero, was already in common usage among Indian mathematicians at le...