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Who Invented The Number Zero?

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Believe it or not, every number has a story behind its inception and zero, is not an exception to the rule despite essentially being the absence of a number. In the beginning, zero was not used very often, if at all, and the funny thing about its creation is the fact that, on record, it was created three different times by three different sets of people. But let us start from the beginning on who exactly created this absent number.

The Babylonian empire

The first recorded time the zero was “invented” was during the third century BC by the Babylonian empire. This would be the only time the zero would be used for a long, long time until the Mayans came to pass. This would be one hundred years later when the Mayans in Central America created the zero for their own uses to make things easier for their people to discern certain inequities. Again another one hundred years later, the zero would be “invented” again, and for the final time, in India, where it would finally catch on worldwide as a legitimate number endorsed by most civilizations at the time across the world. By time it reached Europe in the 12^th century, most if not, all mathematicians utilized the zero.

Brahmagupta explicitly defined the number zero and how to use it.

Brahmagupta

For a more specific creator of this absence of a number, in India, it was made by Brahmagupta, a Hindu mathematician who first truly endorsed the number. Prior to its “official” creation and implementation into the mainstream, no other countries used the number until it reached India’s sub conscious. Before the zero was used universally, the thing that mathematicians utilized was blank spaces to decide how to calculate a problem as if there was nothing there.

The last number to be created

Another quick little fun fact about the creation of the zero is the fact that it was the last number, in recorded history, to be created. No new numbers have been created since, or at least no new numbers that are actually used and utilized each and every day. It was also the only number to be placed before the beginning of the count.

Math invention: Algebra, geometry, numbers and calculus.