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India's contributions to mathematics:
It should come as no surprise that the first recorded use of the number zero, recently discovered to be made as early as the 3rd or 4th century, happened in India. Mathematics on the Indian subcontinent has a rich history going back over 3,000 years and thrived for centuries before similar advances were made in Europe, with its influence meanwhile spreading to China and the Middle East.
As well as giving us the concept of zero, Indian mathematicians made seminal contributions to the study of trigonometry, algebra, arithmetic and negative numbers among other areas. Perhaps most significantly, the decimal system that we still employ worldwide today was first seen in India.
With such a significant technical lead, how did they fall behind?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday September 22 2017, @11:47PM (2 children)
Agreed - the number zero is a revolutionary mathematical concept, one which actually saw significant resistance to its adoption (how can *nothing* be a value?), but without which modern mathematics would not be possible.
In comparison there's nothing special about a placeholder - it's just a typographic convention that simplifies position-based numerical representations.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 23 2017, @05:58AM (1 child)
Zero is not null, guys. Elementary set theory... I don't think the Indians gave us that tho ;)
{}
{0}
{0,{0}}
etc.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday September 26 2017, @06:44PM
Who suggested it was? But set theory, much less null, is not particularly relevant to bookkeeping, geometry, or any of the applied maths that existed at the time.
Mathematics grew out of counting, and while it makes perfect sense to have three apples, eat one and have two apples, eat one and have one apple... it makes far less sense to eat that and say you now have zero apples. At that point you have nothing, assigning a number to the amount of apples you still have is a very strange concept. Even negative numbers were developed several centuries beforehand.