What is the origin of zero? How did we indicate nothingness before zero?
551516
With a big goose egg.
145941
That's an interesting question. But the answer may seem a bit weird at first. I suggest you read the answer carefully.\n\nThe world has invented the number system. \nIn olden days, the arabians and egyptians used numbers from 1 to 9. But the theory of negative numbers came only after a brilliant Indian Mathematician ARYABHATTA devised the number zero as the king of all numbers. Zero is undoutedly the most important and the backbone of maths and the number system.\nThe number system was extended on both sides of zero around the 1800s to 1900s to form nearly more than 100 numbers on each side. With time, the number system has advanced and now we know that its limitless.\nEverything that is made around us has many helping hands. Always remember that my friend. Keeping asking such provoking questions. They will shape you into a good character.
142303
the whole idea that there was nothing and now theres something?\n\nwhy?
386709
The zero is a powerful persuasive number that recruits all other numbersinto its evil zero army.  Not even the mighty Infinity can salvage ones who have been converted to the zero side, but numbers converted to infinity can turn into zeros.  Do not underestimate the power of the number zero-or it will turn you into one, too.
564057
It's an interesting question.  'Nothing' is an idea, not an object or a place.  By its very definition, it can't be something, because then it would not be nothing, so your sense of a physical space that we could call nothing is linguistically impossible.\n\nNot every culture has or had a word for 'nothing,' so in a sense, you could say that 'nothing' was an idea that someone invented at some unknown point in the past.  You can think of it as the absence of something, or as a philosophical abstract, or a mathematical starting point.  I think the oldest language with a word for 'zero' was Arabic.  Incidentally, this is why there was no year 0, and 1 B.C. is followed immediately by 1 A.D.  When the priests who were writing the calendar system that is the basis of the calendar we use today, they had never heard of the word/number/idea of zero.  How could they have missed this? Who knows?  It seems impossible to us now.\n\nAs for the 'no matter within a space' part of your question, the answer can be found in a common physics equation that I am sure you know: E=mc^2.  Energy and mass are equivalent.  If there is no 'matter,' or really, mass, within a particular volume of space can you really say that there is nothing there?  No.  On the quantum level, there is really no nothing.\n\nBecause there is still energy in any given space, there is the potential for mass there at any time.  Energy is not really a concept that can be localized or zeroed out- because of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle we know that it is impossibile to measure exact position and speed at the same time, and we have never been able to achieve absolute zero (the temperature at which all kinetic energy becomes zero)- it's probably impossible.  The average temperature of the universe is known to be 3 degrees Kelvin, due to the cosmic microwave background radiation, an after-effect of the Big Bang.  Basically what I'm saying is that if the 'energy' within a space can't be zero, on a quantum level, then the mass can't be, either.\n\nAnother way of thinking about it from a quantum mechanics perspective is wave/particle duality.  This is a concept that even physicists have trouble wrapping their minds around, but essentially the point is that particles have wavelike qualities and waves have particlelike qualities.  It's back to the Heisenberg uncertainty again.  Until they are measured, particles do not exist in any one place, they exist in all places simultaneously with different probabilities.  For any particular particle, there may be an infinitesimal chance that it is inside the space you are looking at to find emptiness, but if you add it all up, it is incredibly likely that some particle is there at all times.  \n\nOnce a particle's position is measured, the system collapses and the particle has a location, but you cannot measure every particle at once and any particle you have just measured can go back into its quantum state afterwards, and again be anywhere with some probability.\n\nThanks for the interesting question- a chance to flex my brain this afternoon.
1138037
Though 'poojyam' (Samskrüt term) was used in India to denote\nthe zero, as early as 1700 B.C. (which was promptly picked-up by the mathematicians of Babylonia), it was only Bháskara, a Hindu mathematician also of India, who gave its present 'o' form - signifying an empty hole ! - in the 7th century A.D. !
106499
This is the case\ncircumferences no where centres everywhere\n\nJust try,  even you can not imagine NOTHING, because before imagining that, your mind was already there, thereby the NOTHINGNESS is voilated.\n Even the 'ZERO' is not the one we usually think.\nIt is a compromising point of  +(Plus) and - (Minus) infinity !!!!!. Even mathametically all is filled in 'ZERO'. Enven any number, say 100, it is 0-1000, that is to say you have borrowed it from 'ZERO'\nIt enough for now,  there is musch more to say about 'ZERO'
808543
In the number system zero is considered to be neither positive  nor negative.So if you speak of  negtive zero,it is simply a non-existing thing.And you can always fit into it not only thre beauties but also hundreds of uglies and thousands of idiots.
484386
0 as a number\n\n0 is the integer that precedes the positive 1, and follows −1. Zero first appeared as a number in Brahmagupta's work dated to 628. Prior to that Babylonians used a space marker that played one of the functions of zero. Babylonians did not have a special symbol for zero. In most (if not all) numerical systems, 0 was identified before the idea of 'negative integers' was accepted.\n\nZero is an integer which quantifies a count or an amount of null size; that is, if the number of your brothers is zero, that means the same thing as having no brothers, and if something has a weight of zero, it has no weight. If the difference between the number of pieces in two piles is zero, it means the two piles have an equal number of pieces. Before counting starts, the result can be assumed to be zero; that is the number of items counted before you count the first item and counting the first item brings the result to one. And if there are no items to be counted, zero remains the final result.\n\nWhile mathematicians all accept zero as a number, some others would say that zero is not a number, arguing one cannot have zero of something. Others hold that if you have zero dollars in your bank account, you have a specific quantity of money in your account, namely none. It is that latter view which is accepted by mathematicians and most others.\n\nAlmost all historians omit the year zero from the proleptic Gregorian and Julian calendars, but astronomers include it in these same calendars. However, the phrase Year Zero may be used to describe any event considered so significant that it virtually starts a new time reckoning.\n\n\n\n0 as a numeral\n\nThe modern numeral 0 is normally written as a circle or (rounded) rectangle.\n\nOn the seven-segment displays of calculators, watches, etc., 0 is usually written with six line segments, though on some historical calculator models it was written with four line segments. This variant glyph has not caught on.\n\nEarly Europeans hesitated to consider zero as a numeral or number. Leonardo of Pisa or Fibonacci says the following in 1202 AD when the Indian number system arrived in Europe.\n\n"After my father's appointment by his homeland as state official in the customs house of Bugia for the Pisan merchants who thronged to it, he took charge; and in view of its future usefulness and convenience, had me in my boyhood come to him and there wanted me to devote myself to and be instructed in the study of calculation for some days. \nThere, following my introduction, as a consequence of marvelous instruction in the art, to the nine digits of the Hindus, the knowledge of the art very much appealed to me before all others, and for it I realized that all its aspects were studied in Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily, and Provence, with their varying methods; and at these places thereafter, while on business.\n\nI pursued my study in depth and learned the give-and-take of disputation. But all this even, and the algorism, as well as the art of Pythagoras, I considered as almost a mistake in respect to the method of the Hindus. (Modus Indorum). Therefore, embracing more stringently that method of the Hindus, and taking stricter pains in its study, while adding certain things from my own understanding and inserting also certain things from the niceties of Euclid's geometric art. I have striven to compose this book in its entirety as understandably as I could, dividing it into fifteen chapters.\n\nAlmost everything which I have introduced I have displayed with exact proof, in order that those further seeking this knowledge, with its pre-eminent method, might be instructed, and further, in order that the Latin people might not be discovered to be without it, as they have been up to now. If I have perchance omitted anything more or less proper or necessary, I beg indulgence, since there is no one who is blameless and utterly provident in all things."\n\nLeonardo of Pisa \nHere Leonardo
332996
Zero - is it positive or negative?
329883
Yes, all zeroes are equal... but you have to pay close attention when they are place holders in place values (if that's where your real question is...?).\n\nZero means you have nothing of whatever you are counting. It can be zero apples, zero dogs, zero people...\n\nIn place value, it means you have nothing for that place. For example, the number 100 means you have one hundred, zero tens, and zero ones.  The number 620,043 means you have 6 hundred-thousands, 2 ten-thousands, zero thousands, zero hundreds, 4 tens, and 3 ones. In large numbers, we are skip-counting (multiplying) by the value of each place.\n\n6 x 100,000\n2 x 10,000\n0 x 1,000\n0 x 100\n4 x 10\n3 x 1\n\nThen adding.  Do you see how zeroes allow us to count the place values for which we have nothing to put?
371100
0 was invented by people in India(all though it is often mistakingly thought to be from the arabs). Ask them why the decided to come up with the concept of a number represent nothing. Om means Yes to the universe. It also means Perfect nothingness or Zero. Some people believe that Zero is not a correct measurement though.
595633
When you are dividing by something you are trying to find out how many of a certain amount (say, 3) is in another amount (say, 12). The result for my example, is of course 4, since 3 goes into the number 12 four times.\n\nNow the number 0 is nothing, literally. So if you're dividing into, say 12, you're wondering how much nothing is in 12. That's just not possible, because 12 is all "something".\n\nI hope that's clear enough...I tried.\n\nEdit: The guy above me is wrong.
572082
There are many undetermined ( not undefined ) mathematical quantities such as :\ninfinity - infinity\ninfinity / infinity\nzero / zero\nzero ^ zero\nzero * infinity\nas an example : (0^2)^0 = 0^0\n                (0^3)^0 = 0^0\nis that mean that 2=3 ?\nSo 0^0 is an undetermined quantity\nregarding that zero can be considered as the smallest +ve quantity we can ever have or the biggest -ve quantity we can ever have
469511
To quote dilbert: "Early Civilisations never had a concept of zero" (hey, you wanted it thorough right?) And they started the number system at one. .... Hmm, pretty much the panel cuts out... \nRemember, the ones and zeros are really the positive and negative polaritys on a magnetic disk. That is the key to your computer informations. Do not take a magnet to your computer.
143567
The number Zero (0) and the decimal system was introduced to Europe, which became the basis for the Scientific revolution. The Arabic numerals were also transferred to Europe, this made mathematical tasks much easier, problems that took days to solve could now be solved in minutes. The works of Al-Khwarizmi (Alghorismus) were translated into Latin. Alghorismus, from whom the mathematical term algorism was derived, wrote Sindhind, a compilation of astronomical tables.\n\nTrigonometric work by Alkirmani of Toledo was translated into Latin (from which we get the sine and cosine functions) along with the Greek knowledge of Geometry by Euclid. Along with mathematics, masses of other knowledge in the field of physical science was transferred.
596523
If you are approaching zero from the left, then -1 divided by 0 is positive infinity.\nIf you are approaching zero from the right, then -1 divided by 0 is negative infinity.\n-1 divided by 0 is undefined because you get different results when coming in from the right side of 0 and the left side of 0.\nI learned this in Calc 1 (possibly Calc 2).\nThere are different levels (degrees) of infinity.