Comment by adrian_b
1 month ago
While the use of zero and of the positional writing system for numbers have become widespread in Europe after taking them from the Arabs, which had previously taken them from India, these were already known in the Ancient World, both in Ancient Greece and even earlier in Assyria and Babylonia.
However, in the Ancient World the use of zero and positional numbers was restricted to some special applications, e.g. in astronomical tables, and it was unknown for most of the people.
The most novel feature of the Indian system was the application of the positional principle to decimal numbers, instead of sexagesimal numbers, and not the use of zero, which did not differ much from how it was used earlier.
The most novel feature of the Indian numerals is the use of the rounded zero symbol for the mathematical zero, so we all know it so well.
The Indian numerals also covered all the basic numeral digits and fit perfectly into the decimal system (which was also invented by the ancient Indians - they primarily used it for measuring weights, especially for currency/trade). The word meter/metre (from Sanskrit "miti") is also of Indian origin. The mathematical zero also fits in perfectly with binary system, also an ancient Indian invention.
The ancient Babylonians did use a dot/period as symbol of zero, but there is no information on whether they also associated zero with voidness/emptiness which the ancient Indians certainly did.
It can be argued that the ancient Babylonians and Indians independently discovered the concept of mathematical zero, and rest of the world learnt such basic concepts from them gradually, Interestingly, while even modern science+mathematics only uses big numbers to a certain extent, the ancient Indian Jain's & Hindus were doing computations of up to 10^32! Hindu cosmology even calculates time up to 10^15, and knows about multiverse, whereas modern science calculates Time only upto billions of years (10^9) and only recently started acknowledging the possibility of multiverse (as it is only explanation of what existed before the Big Bang), I i.e. Time is cyclical, and universes are birthed (Big Bang), grow (expand), decay (collapse) and shrink back to the Infinitesimal Dot again).
So it is a shame that ancient India's contributions to mathematics and other fields (e.g., geography, surgeries, medical tools, metallurgy, etc.) are unknown and ignored by most of the world, and the credits for such knowledge were stolen.
Did you know?.. India built and managed the world's first universities, in Takshashila and Nalanda, which has lots of diverse subjects/disciplines being taught and researched. The Arabs/Turks later invaded, looted and destroyed these amazing universities and their priceless treasure trove of books (the libraries were so huge that the arson fires burnt for months). The ruins of these ancient pioneering repositories of knowledge still stand as mute witnesses to their glorious knowledge-sharing past.