Someone here said that Islam invented zero or something like that. Well... is it true?

Georges Ifrah, The Universal History of Numbers from Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer, Wiley, New York, 2000.

On the invention of zero:

Most peoples throughout history failed to discover the rule of position, which was discovered in fact only four times in the history of the world. (The rule of position is the principle in which a 9, let's say, has a different magnitude depending on whether it comes in first, second, third... position in a numerical expression.) The first discovery of this essential tool of mathematics was made in Babylon in the second millennium BCE. It was then rediscovered by the Chinese arithmeticians at around the start of the Common Era. In the third to fifth centuries CE, Mayan astronomers reinvented it, and in the fifth century CE it was rediscovered for the last time, in India.
Obviously, no civilization outside of these four ever felt the need to invent zero; but as soon as the rule of position became the basis for a numbering system, a zero was needed. All the same, only three of the four (the Babylonians, the Mayans, and the Indians) managed to develop this final abstraction of number; the Chinese only acquired it through Indian influences. However, the Babylonian and Mayan zeroes were not conceived of as numbers, and only the Indian zero had roughly the same potential as the one we use nowadays. That is because it is indeed the Indian zero, transmitted to us through the Arabs together with the number-symbols that we call Arabic numerals and which are in reality Indian numerals, with their appearance altered somwhat by time, use and travel.

So the Indians invented it and Islam stole the rights to it. The truth be told.

• Re: Dispelling a lie brought up by some nut. - yanniru - January 11, 2001 - 18:57 UTC
  • zeroes are very important - mathman - January 12, 2001 - 05:39 UTC
• In every day life... - philosofir - January 23, 2001 - 17:23 UTC