A Short Animated History of Zero (0): How It Started in India, Then Made Its Journey to the West

Zilch. Nada. Bup­kis. Yes, I’m tak­ing about Zero (0), a num­ber that seems so essen­tial to our sys­tem of num­bers, and yet it has­n’t always enjoyed such a priv­i­leged place. Far from it.

In this short ani­ma­tion, Britain’s ven­er­a­ble Roy­al Insti­tu­tion traces the his­to­ry of zero, a num­ber that emerged in sev­enth cen­tu­ry India, before mak­ing its way to Chi­na and Islam­ic coun­tries, and final­ly pen­e­trat­ing West­ern cul­tures in the 13th cen­tu­ry. Only lat­er did it become the cor­ner­stone of cal­cu­lus and the lan­guage of com­put­ing.

India, we owe you thanks.

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