THE GREATNESS OF NOTHING
Zero… Does that even represent a quantity? If
something doesn’t really exist can we express it? Even
though today we can use zero on all the calculation
types -we subtract nothing from a number, we sum a
number with nothing, we multiply it with nothing and
most amazingly we can divide it to nothing -, there is a
great story behind the number of zero. Although it can
be seen as one of the essentials of math, it was invented
after all the integers from one to nine. Everybody was
aware of the idea of nothing but as a mathematical
concept it was harder to invent the number of zero.
Was it holy, as the starting point of all and at the middle
or cursed a taboo breaker and a sign of the demon?
Today this is clear that it wasn’t really welcomed by all.
It was ready to break taboos and it was a total stranger
–especially in Europe-.
The number zero and its representations have showed
up in many nations and regions n different times. Zero
is one of the most important things in algebra and it
was not just used, in mathematics but also its existence
has affected many other disciplines such as physics or
chemistry. The number zero was used in Ancient Egypt.
In their own alphabet Egyptians had a special sign to
show the number zero. This usage is dated to B. C.E.
2000 almost, again in the same millennium also the
Babylonian mathematicians used to do some work on
the number zero. In the ancient times the people would
just leave a blank space between the numbers in order
to represent zero. If we would be using it today there
will be confusion between the numbers like 11 and
101. We would only have a chance of identifying them
contextually. But that was different on the Babylon,
they used to use a system which was a system on the
base of 60 so there would be a confusion between 5
and 300(5x60).
Another big development on the history of zero was
made by early Indian mathematicians. Brahmagupta
was one of the greatest mathematicians of all India and
he had some rules which were related to the number
zero. Some of those are still in use. He stated those rules
on his book written in A.C.E.. Some of them were like the
sum of a positive number with zero is positive and if the
number is negative also the result would be negative.
When zero is summed with itself the result is again zero.
Also if two numbers, one positive one negative, have
the same value of their modulus their sum would be
zero. He also pointed out that if a negative number was
subtracted from zero the result will be positive. And if
the same was done with a positive number then the
result would become negative. If zero was multiplied
by any number –including its own- the result that you
get would be a zero. Right now we think of those like
too easy to make a big deal out of but during that time
those could be counted as inventions. This was the
main principle of working of zero.
In the same regions also in China there were some
concepts of zero but there zero wasn’t accepted as a
numeral during those times. It was more like a position
of vacancy for Chinese mathematicians. They used to
have numeric representations by using rods and the
zero was with no rods. Basically it was emptiness.
Between all the Islamic mathematicians a man had
been considered the most famous. He was Abu Ja’far
Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi who was also
called as the father of algebra. He had inspiration on
mainly Greeks and the Indians. Around A.C.E. 825 he
have written his one book which had a mixture of those
background knowledge and his own studies and ideas.
That book was translated to Latin language. Again in the
islamic world, Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Khwarizmi,
had the idea of placing a circle – called şifr- asa a plce
holder, if there is no numbers on the place of tens.
In Greece the mathematicians asked themselves
a philosophical question as “Can nothing be
something?”. In Ancient Greece there was a numerical
systems which numbers have characters such as male,
female, nurturing or tough. Then what would be the
zero? It was considered as the vacuum. Ptolemy, a
Greek mathematician, also used a circle to represent
THE CLAPPER 2014 - 2015 41
MATHEMATICS
DEPARTMENT