300 BC to 600 AD |
|
| Interestingly enough, the idea of numbers like one, two, and three developed a long time before the concept of zero. This was largely because the requirement for a number "zero" was less than obvious in the context of the calculations that early man was trying to perform. | ||
| a | ||
| For example, suppose that a young man's father had instructed
him to stroll up to the top field to count their herd of goats and, on arriving, the lad
discovered the gate wide open and no goats to be seen. First, his task on the counting
front had effectively been done for him. Second, on returning to his aged parent, he
probably wouldn't feel the need to say: "Oh
revered one, I regret to inform you that the result of my calculations lead me to believe
that we are the proud possessors of zero goats." Instead, he would be far more inclined to proclaim something along the lines of: "Father, some drongo left the gate open and all of our goats have wandered off." |
In the case of the original Babylonian system (see also The first place-value number system), a zero was
simply represented by a space. Imagine if, in our decimal system, instead of writing 104
(one-hundred-and-four) we were to write 1 4 (one-space-four). It's easy to see how this can lead to a certain amount of confusion, especially when there are multiple zeros next to each other. The problems can only be exacerbated if, like the Babylonians, one is using a base-sixty system and writing on clay tablets in a thunderstorm. |
|
| a | ||
| After more than 1,500 years of potentially inaccurate calculations, the Babylonians finally began to use a special sign for zero. Many historians believe that this sign, which first appeared around 300 BC, was one of the most significant inventions in the history of mathematics. However, the Babylonians only used their symbol as a place holder and they didn't have the concept of zero as an actual value. Thus, clay tablet accounting records of the time couldn't say something like "0 fish," but instead they had to write out in full: "We don't have any fish left." | ||
| a | ||
| The use of zero as an actual value, along with the concept of negative numbers, first appeared in India around 600 AD. Although negative numbers appear reasonably obvious to us today, they were not well-understood until modern times. As recently as the eighteenth century, the great Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler (pronounced "Oiler" in America) believed that negative numbers were greater than infinity, and it was common practice to ignore any negative results returned by equations on the assumption that they were meaningless! | ||
| a | |
|
|
| These notes are abstracted from the book Bebop BYTES Back (An Unconventional Guide to Computers) Copyright Information |
|
