Who Discovered Zero?
By: Claire Kazen
May 25, 2007
Focus Of Presentation
The History of Zero Before Zero Birth of Zero
Zero in the classroom How zero needs to be emphasized more Meaningful activities to explore zero
First Things First
Two uses for zero, both extremely important One
Empty place indicator • 2106 clearly different from 216
Two The number itself
• Zero, derives from the Arabic sifr
Life Without Zero
Can you imagine mathematics without zero? Numbers were used to count creatures or
objects 40 cows in the field Six loaves of bread at the marketplace
Counting zero sheep or loaves of bread did make much sense
Zero was just not needed!
Before Zero
Numbers were used for thousands of years before they used zero
Historical records show different path towards the concept Zero made appearances only to vanish again Mathematicians were searching for it yet did
not recognize its fundamental significance
Egyptians
Egyptian hieroglyphics were used as early as 3500 B.C.E.
Egypt did not have~ or need~ a zero.
Even without zero, Egyptians became masters of mathematics.
Greeks
The Greeks brought mathematics to its highest point in ancient times.
Around 500 BC, the Greeks developed a newer more sophisticated system This way avoided repeated letters
Romans
The Romans also had a number system It was a step back from
the less sophisticated Egyptian system.
The Roman 87, LXXXVII, requires seven symbols, with several repeats
Still…
The Egyptian, Greek and Roman number systems still had no zeros
Even though the Greek number system was more sophisticated than the Egyptian and Greek, it was not the most advanced.
Babylonians
2500 B.C.E., the Babylonians used a system of two symbols Base 60
They sometimes used a space to represent an empty position.
By about 200 C.E., they used a pair of small triangles to represent an empty position.
Babylonians never actually invented a zero, they made an important first step!
Babylonians
India
Hindu culture had a positional number system in base ten They used a dot to represent an empty place
Sunya which meant “empty” was the name for this dot
At this point, the early zero was a placeholder and an aid in computation
By 500 C.E., the Hindus use a small circle to represent Zero! This circle was recognized as a numeral
Hindu- Arabic Numerals
Arabic people recognized the value of the Hindu system They adapted the numerals and computation Then spread the ideas in their travels
The zero was named with the Arabic word sifz The actual word “zero” came from Italy
Spreading The News
Leonardo of Pisa, known as Fibonacci Born to a merchant
family living in North Africa
Learned Hindu-Arabic numerals from his Arabic tutors
He brought the news of zero and new computational methods to Europe in his book
Fear of Zero!
Europeans resisted Hindu-Arabic numerals
It seemed strange The numerals, including zero, were not
accepted Florence, Italy, passed a law prohibiting the use
of the numerals 0 could be changed to look like 6 or 9
Slowly, the numbers became accepted 1500s
Birth of Zero
In the history of culture the discovery of zero will always stand out as one of the greatest single achievements of the human race.
-Tobias Danzig
Without zero we would lack Calculus, financial
accounting, the ability to make arithmetic computations quickly and computers!
Zero Is A Special Number
If we add 0 to any number, the sum is the original number Same is true for subtraction
If you multiply any number by 0, the product is 0 If you raise any nonzero number to the power of 0, the
resulting number is 1 If you divide 0 by any nonzero, the quotient is 0 Any number divided by 0 is undefined
Zero is…..
It is the number that separates positive numbers from negative numbers
It is even It is the integer that precedes one Zero must sit in its rightful place on the
number line, before on and after negative one
BUT….
Yet zero sits at the end of the computer key board and at the bottom of the telephone!
Because we always start counting with one!
Difficulties With Zero
Writing numbers 100, 110, and 101 Older children
Only 50% of seven grader could correctly write “two hundred thousand and forty-three”
Addition and Subtraction problems 2000-169
Multiplication and division problems 0x6 and 6/0 Also 9x306
Comparing decimal fractions 0.02 and 0.002 or 0.2 and 0.20
How As Teacher We Can Help
Zero is an important number and it does in fact “do something”!
Zero needs to be introduced in early education Zero is sometimes overlooked when
introducing numbers
With older grades, make sure to have problems with zero
Meaningful Activities with Zero
Discuss the use and verbalization of zero Street addresses, telephone and PIN numbers
Name things that there are zero of in the classroom
Put a coin in all but one container; shut them and ask the children to guess which one has zero coins
Include a blank card in sorting exercises
More Activities
Explore number patterns involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of zero
Exploration of true/false statements 10+0=10, 100-120=0, and 4+0>4
Story problems “There are 0 grams of fat in each serving of
cucumber. How many grams of fat are in 7 servings of cucumber?”
Resources Anthony, Glenda, and Margaret Walshaw. “Zero: A “None”
Number?” Teaching Children Mathematics. August 2004
Humes, Alexander. Zero to Lazy Eight, The Romance of Numbers. Simon and Shuster. New York, New York, 1993.
Ifrah, Grorges. The Universal History of Numbers. John Wiley and sons, Inc. New York, New York, 2006.
O’Connor, JJ and E F Robertson. “History Topic: A history of Zero,” MacTutor History of Mathematics. Noverber 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Zero.html
Resources
Seife, Charles. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea. Penguin Group Penugin Putnam Inc. New York, New York, 2000.
Wallin, Nils-Bertil. “The History of Zero, How was Zero Discovered?” Yale Global, 19 November, 2002.
Wilson, Patricia S. “Zero: A Special Case.” Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School. 6 no 5 300-3, 308-9 Jan 2001.
“O” Wikipedia, May 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_%28number%29