In Mexico , the Mayayans appear to have recognised zero as a number more than 1300 years ago.
Ancient Greeks, Romans and and Egyptians had not used zero as a number.Greeks made their mathematical contribution through geometry, where zero and irrational numbers didn't have any place. The ancient Babylonean culture also does not make use of zero or its concepts.
The Indians devloped a place value number system.They developed and used a system where the value of numbers increases or decreses ten times as you change the places( Sthaanam sthaanam dashagunam ). Brahmagupta and Bhaskara the ancient Indian mathematician cum astronomers contributed the property of zero as a number that neither adds or decreases when you add it or subtract it from a number. Also they found zero as a value when ypu subtract a number from itself. But they struggled to divide a non zer number by a zero. In present day notation they did try to find what is n/0 but not corrrectly.
Around the 7th century,the Indians introduced the concepts of Indian mathematics and number system to Islam . It was the traders after all who are the people who took the system(probably the best users of numbers while trading) to Arabia. But the real person who found it extremely useful was an Iallian boy (the son of trader) and later a Mathematician, Fibonocci. He publishes the use of the zero and the decimal number system.
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