How old is Zero

The invention of zero for me is one of the important moments in history of mathematics. This is a moment where suddenly a very abstract idea a symbol for the concept of nothing. I mean why do you need to count nothing? But this really kick-started some extraordinary mathematics things like the calculus even our digital age is dependent on things like ones and zeros one of the most important things that zero gave rise to was the ability for the common person to be able to do mathematics before we  have it has no idea of zero calculations were done on an abacus it was hard to record what was happening and it meant that mathematics was in the power of the authorities those who could do math suddenly with zero we were able to record what was happening and it sort of democratized mathematics we so take the idea of zero for granted in our modern age but where did this number first appear well amazingly mathematics was really vibrant in the Indian subcontinent and we find zero being talked about for the first time there and why this man you split the back Sharlee manuscript is so important is this seems to be the first place that we see this idea of zero beginning to be born the back Sharlee manuscript is actually quite a complicated document because it is not just one piece of mathematics it’s many piece written over it appears now quite a few centuries and it seems to be a document helping and merchants to do mathematical calculations so there are lots of examples and lots of numbers and this is where we see the zero because in some of these numbers we see a dot this is a dot saying there is nothing here and so this dot is the one that will eventually open up to be the zero that we use today the idea of zero as a placeholder is actually very ancient the ancient Babylonians the Mayans had an idea of a zero as a placeholder so something like a hundred and one means there are no tins so we see zero in the back a manuscript being used as a placeholder but why is this so important as a moment in the history of mathematics because this symbol eventually gives rise to zero in its own right a number for counting absolutely nothing and this is a revolutionary moment in mathematics I’ve been fascinated for years trying to find the first example of a written zero and I went out to India and found a zero carved on the side of a temple which dates to the ninth century but this back shali manuscript the challenge was is this earlier and for years we just haven’t known because but the body in library didn’t want to burn a bit to do some carbon dating but I press them and said I would love to know what the date is so they’ve now done a carbon dating and I think everyone was truly shocked to find out that actually this is so much earlier than anyone thought this dates to the 3^rd 4^th  century I think many people are aware that our modern technology depends so much on mathematics but I think is often missed is that mathematics has a history it’s come from somewhere it comes from people coming up with new ideas in this document we see one of the most important new ideas created in mathematics now we understand from the 3^rd 4^th century I started to dig into the history of my subject I was really surprised to discover how much mathematics was going on in the east and in particular the Indian subcontinent and when we have the creation of zero but that’s not all there are very early signs of the calculus being done way before newton and Leibniz doing it and goes on today India is one of the powerhouses of the mathematical world in the 21^st  century too.