The Babylonians employed a number system based around values of 60, and they developed a specific sign—two small wedges—to differentiate between magnitudes in the same way that modern decimal-based systems use zeros to distinguish between tenths, hundreds and thousandths.
Moreover, If zero hadn't been discovered, we would have no algebra, no decimal system, no arithmetic, and most importantly — no computers! Even so, the significance of zero is seldom appreciated by us.
In the 7th century, the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta used small dots to show the zero placeholder, but also recognized it as a number, with a null value that was called “sunya”. India's math spread to China and the Middle East cultures, where it was instrumental and developed further.
The first recorded zero appeared in Mesopotamia around 3 B.C. The Mayans invented it independently circa 4 A.D. It was later devised in India in the mid-fifth century, spread to Cambodia near the end of the seventh century, and into China and the Islamic countries at the end of the eighth.
Zero helps us understand that we can use math to think about things that have no counterpart in a physical lived experience; imaginary numbers don't exist but are crucial to understanding electrical systems. Zero also helps us understand its antithesis, infinity, in all of its extreme weirdness.
The invention of zero immensely simplified computations, freeing mathematicians to develop vital mathematical disciplines such as algebra and calculus, and eventually the basis for computers.
About 773 AD the mathematician Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khowarizmi was the first to work on equations that were equal to zero (now known as algebra), though he called it 'sifr'. By the ninth century the zero was part of the Arabic numeral system in a similar shape to the present day oval we now use.
The first known English use of zero was in 1598. The Italian mathematician Fibonacci (c. 1170–1250), who grew up in North Africa and is credited with introducing the decimal system to Europe, used the term zephyrum. This became zefiro in Italian, and was then contracted to zero in Venetian.
Therefore it is said that Aryabhatta found zero.
Since zero does not exist in the natural world it is no surprise that it took thousands of years for civilization to conceptualize the numerical value of nothing.
Having no zero would unleash utter chaos in the world. Maths would be different ball game altogether, with no fractions, no algebra and no calculus. A number line would go from -1 to 1 with nothing bridging the gap. Zero as a placeholder has lots of value and without it a billion would simply be “1”.
Infinity is not a number, but if it were, it would be the largest number. Of course, such a largest number does not exist in a strict sense: if some number n n n were the largest number, then n + 1 n+1 n+1 would be even larger, leading to a contradiction. Hence infinity is a concept rather than a number.
The smallest one-digit numbers are 0 and 1, as should be obvious. There is a one-digit natural number and a one-digit whole number whose smallest value is zero. Because of this, the smallest one-digit whole number is zero, and one is the smallest one-digit natural number.
infinity, the concept of something that is unlimited, endless, without bound. The common symbol for infinity, ∞, was invented by the English mathematician John Wallis in 1655.
They originated in India in the 6th or 7th century and were introduced to Europe through the writings of Middle Eastern mathematicians, especially al-Khwarizmi and al-Kindi, about the 12th century.
Zero's origins most likely date back to the “fertile crescent” of ancient Mesopotamia. Sumerian scribes used spaces to denote absences in number columns as early as 4,000 years ago, but the first recorded use of a zero-like symbol dates to sometime around the third century B.C. in ancient Babylon.
We used roman numbers and word number before zero was invented.
The first use of “zero” in English was in 1598. The word “zero” comes from the Italian zero, which in turn traces its roots to the Arabic word ṣifr, meaning “empty.” Zero is a number with many other names, including “oh”, nil, nought, naught, ought, aught, cipher, zilch, and zip.
The first modern equivalent of the numeral zero comes from a Hindu astronomer and mathematician Brahmagupta in 628. His symbol to depict the numeral was a dot underneath a number. He also wrote standard rules for reaching zero through addition and subtraction and the results of operations that include the digit.
The earliest evidence of written mathematics dates back to the ancient Sumerians, who built the earliest civilization in Mesopotamia. They developed a complex system of metrology from 3000 BC.
He is one of the three protagonists, alongside X and Axl, in the Mega Man X series and the main protagonist of the Mega Man Zero games. In the former series, he is one of the highest ranking "Maverick Hunters" who is fighting to stop Sigma's forces of infected Reploids, known as Mavericks, from exterminating humanity.
Eventually, Zero gets sick because he has been eating from cans of 100-year-old peaches. Stanley does not give up on his friend, however. He carries him up the mountain to the water. A curse had been put on Stanley's family, the Yelnats, by Zero's great-great-great-grandmother, Madame Zeroni.
The Smallest four-digit number in the number system is 1000.
The googolplex is, then, a specific finite number, equal to 1 with a googol zeros after it.
The concept of infinity in mathematics allows for different types of infinity. The smallest version of infinity is aleph 0 (or aleph zero) which is equal to the sum of all the integers. Aleph 1 is 2 to the power of aleph 0. There is no mathematical concept of the largest infinite number.