The origin of the digital symbol '0' is longer than we think

The "0" number is what we think is of course but its conceptual origin is still a question of embarrassment for archaeologists and historians. A recently updated study of an ancient Indian manuscript is shedding light on this long-standing mystery, the study shows that the symbol that will later develop into a "0" has appeared 500 years earlier. with old estimates.

Age-based carbon isotopes on the Bakhshali manuscript, the only copy of a mathematical text , determine its date of occurrence between 224-383 BC, not from the 9th to 12th centuries as Previous studies have shown. In the Bakhshali manuscript littered with symbols for the "0" in the form of round black dots , this is the oldest example ever known about symbols that would later become a single digit.

The manuscript was discovered buried under a field near the village of Bakhshali by a local farmer in 1881, now Pakistan. It was sent to the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in 1902 and has been there ever since. Previous analyzes show that the manuscript is written in Sanskrit Buddhist (or Sanskrit Mix) , it contains hundreds of "0" number symbols and appears to be used by a merchant for reference. daily exchange. But the exact date of the manuscript is still a mystery, so in early 2017, researchers from the Bodleian Library, Oxford University and the Radioactive Carbon Accelerator Unit, Oxford University worked together in a program to determine the age of manuscripts with carbon isotopes.

Part of Bakhshali manuscript.

Previous studies of the date and origins of the Bakhshali script suggest that it was written around the middle of the 8th century to the 12th century, but that it was an analysis based on style, text, and mathematical content. and other factors. Carbon age has just been measured to show why the original age is difficult to determine: this manuscript is made up of more than 70 lumpy bark plates of birch stalks, combined with materials from at least three calendar periods. different history.

It should be noted that this analysis has not been approved for publication in a scientific journal . "We consider it a scientific article but have not yet sent it to a magazine or publisher in the form of a scientific article," the Bodleian Library spokesman told Gizmodo: "We provide it lets writers see the findings from the age of carbon isotopes in more detail. "

The concept of 0 seems a bit intuitive, but it's because we're familiar with it. It is a big leap in the concept of saying "There is no apple on this tree" and "this tree has" 0 "apple". Historically, this concept requires a placeholder to indicate "nothing" , which has appeared in several different ancient cultures, including the ancient Mayan and Babylon, but how to use 0 in Bakhshali manuscripts are important for two reasons.

First , the black dot that appears in the Bakhshali manuscript later becomes an empty circle, which is now the symbol of zero. Second , it is the only known example of the 0 placeholder itself. later became a digit. In the discussion attached to the paper, Marcus du Sautoy, an Oxford Professor of Mathematics, explains this as follows:

"The use of zero in the Bakhshali manuscript is not a single digit. It is a placeholder used as part of another number written in that number system. We write 101 to denote 1 hundreds, There are no tens, along with 1 unit.Number does not represent the absence of tens.The idea of ​​the necessity of an icon to represent "nothing" in writing a number of a system 5,000 years ago, the Babylonians used two slashes as part of a symbolic symbol, to write numbers on stone plates, the Mayans use the shell symbol to show absence / absence in their digital system 2000 years ago ".

This manuscript is made up of more than 70 lumpy bark plates of birch trunk.

So the black dots used in the Bakhshali manuscript were not the first time zero was used to create larger numbers, but it was the seed of the development of the zero itself, Sautoy also added. .

According to Richard Ovenden, a Bodley librarian, "the dating of the Bakhshali manuscript is of vital importance to the history of mathematics, studies of early culture in South Asia and worthy research results. This astonishment proved the rich and long tradition of this subcontinent ".

Research around the manuscript is far from complete, but now that scholars know its date, they have a higher ability to reconstruct the original structure of the text, and make judgments. more in depth about different text layers.