Who Discovered Zero? The History of '0' in Mathematics

Before zero was treated as a number you could add or subtract, ancient civilizations like the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Mayans used a 'placeholder'. They used blank spaces or specific symbols to distinguish between numbers like 14 and 104. However, they did not consider this placeholder to be an actual number with value.

In the 5th century (around 500 AD), the brilliant Indian mathematician and astronomer Aryabhata developed a highly advanced decimal place-value system. While he did not explicitly use a symbol for zero in the way we do today, his mathematical framework required the concept of 'null' or a void (kha) to make his complex astronomical calculations work.

The true credit for discovering zero as a fully functioning mathematical number goes to the Indian mathematician and astronomer Brahmagupta. In the year 628 AD, Brahmagupta wrote a landmark treatise called the Brahmasphutasiddhanta.

In this text, Brahmagupta was the first person in history to:

1. Provide a symbol for zero (a dot under a number).
2. Write down the explicit rules for performing arithmetic with zero (e.g., "When zero is added to a number or subtracted from a number, the number remains unchanged; and a number multiplied by zero becomes zero.")

From India, the concept of zero was adopted by Arab mathematicians in the Middle East (such as Al-Khwarizmi) during the Islamic Golden Age. The Arabic world refined the number system, which eventually made its way into Europe by the 12th century through the mathematician Fibonacci. This system is known today as the Hindu-Arabic numeral system.