The Elusive Origin of Zero

The mathematical concept of nothingness is also known as Snya, nulla, ifr, Zevero, zip and zilch.

Zero's heritage has been difficult to trace. To be able to claim the number's origin would give a country a sense of ownership.

India was the location of this ownership throughout the 20th century. The temple where the inscription was found is in the central Indian city of Gwalior. The inscription was translated into English by Eugen Julius Theodor Hultzsch in 1884. This is the oldest known date for zero. Several investigators agree that the first reference of zero was likely on a set of stones found on the island.

A stone stele was discovered by a French archaeological team near the village of Sambor on the banks of the Mekong River. A historical calendar based on the rule of the Indian emperor Shalivahana can be found in the stone's inscription. The reference year is zero, which is the same as theJulian year 78. The date is inscribed on it.

The stone was not examined further until the 20th century because of political upheavals. In 1918, the director of the National Library of Thailand was a Frenchman named Georges Cds. In 1931, Cds found that the numeration system used in the inscribed date, 605, was a zero. The earliest known and documented zero was the focus of the assessment. Cambodia was the center of the honor of claiming zero.

India retained its status as the birthplace of zero because of the claim. The Sambor stone was lost during World War II. A popular science writer tried to find the missing stone and prove it was still important. He found it in an archaeological warehouse.

A book called Finding Zero was published in 2015. He testified that the zero endowed its heritage to Cambodia. Aczel suggested that he had found the first zero. Perhaps the euphoria was too early.

Cds had thought about the existence of an Old Malay empire that predated the Khmers. It was ruled by a maharaja and flourished in the period between 650 and 1377.

The Straits of Malacca, the South China Sea, and the islands of the Philippines were all controlled by Sriwijaya. Sriwijaya was an early center of Buddhism.

There are a lot of Sriwijayan artifacts and records found. Three ceremonial stones with historical numbers 605, 606 and 608 were found by Dutch officers.

The stones were named after the places where they were found. The polished and inscribed stones are thought to have come from the seventh century. The existence of zero in the stones' inscriptions pre-dates the findings of the Gwalior Indian claim.

The history of early numeration systems of Southeast Asia has been studied by researchers at the Center for Civilizational Dialogue. The findings strengthened Sumatra's claim. The state has a strong economic influence and is home to three independent stone glyph inscriptions. In 1995 an article was published in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic society.

One of us was impressed by the mathematical abilities of the traditional Batak people when we visited Sumatra in 1976. He gave his impressions to his Malaysian colleagues. Zero had an early presence in the region after a team at the Center for Civilizational Dialogue focused on Sumatra.

The discovery of a possible nothingness symbol is interesting. Zero could have been conceived and used in a Southeast Asian society. Is the Sriwijayan culture responsible for the zero? Is zero spread from this region eastward into India and then into Europe? The term "Hindu-Arabic" is under serious threat. The history of mathematics offers many mysteries that can puzzle and surprise its followers.

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