How did the concept of zero originate and why is it important to mathematics?
In: Mathematics
It was invented by Indian mathematicians but became popular in the West after a guy named Al Gorithm (which is Arabic for, roughly, “The Uzbekistani”), living in Baghdad around 820 CE, used them in his super popular math book called *Al Gebra* (which is Arabic for “The Reunion”, as in when you solve an equation such as 2x=x+5 by subtracting x from both sides to get x=5; you’ve reunited the x’s).
Its main importance is as a placeholder for use in the “Arabic” numeral system (we call it “Arabic” because *Al Gebra* was written in Arabic). Calculating something like “409+101=510” is a *lot* easier than computing “CDIX+CI=DX”. And the easier it is to do simple calculations, the more hope you have of eventually figuring out how to do complex calculations.
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