UC Connect: Good for nothing! - An illustrated mathematical history of zero

Presenter: Professor Clemency Montelle
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Zero, zip, zilch, nil, nada, nothing - we have many names for it, but who invented the curious concept of zero? And why have we spent millennia making such a big deal out of nothing at all?
Whether you’re a magical math-lete with or merry math-phobe, you’re invited to join us as we take a mystical journey back in time with a University of Canterbury expert in mathematics and ancient languages, Professor Clemency Montelle, to explore the emergence of one of the most interesting and elusive concepts in mathematics - the number zero. Learn first-hand why so many scholars, both ancient and modern, have made much ado about nothing!
The use of zero as a placeholder appeared in several different ancient cultures, from cuneiform tablets in the ancient near east to Greek papyri, from Arabic numerical tables to the fluke discovery of an Indian birch bark manuscript. Associate Professor Montelle will investigate the flourishing of ancient systems of numeration and the symbols they used to capture them.
Dr Clemency Montelle is a Professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics in the University of Canterbury’s College of Engineering. Crazy about mathematics and hooked on ancient languages, researching the history of mathematics was the perfect way to combine her two passions. A graduate from the Department of the History of Mathematics, Brown University, USA, which she completed as Fulbright scholar, Dr Montelle is currently immersed in an international project on the history of mathematical astronomy in Sanskrit sources.
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[@DipayanPyne94]

Interesting video ! Thanks a lot for this !!

[@nostalgia63]

Excellent video. Philochrony is the theory that describes the nature of time and demonstrates its existence. Philochrony establishes an analogy between zero and time thus arising the linear zero.

[@ethanweeks1627]

I spent my whole life thinking 0 was nothing. Now I know, it's actually something!

[@akochunny]

What a fascinating journey across space and time! Zero is a conceptual leap because our natural instinct is to count only what we can see; to conceive of nothingness as an entity requires imagination that is capable of being counter-intuitive. Hindu philosophy and religion also offer tantalising glimpses of ancient Brahmin scholars exploring the idea of nothing ('shunya') giving birth to something; a progenitor to the Big Bang theory, perhaps? There's a fairly decent synopsis of the contributions of ancient Indian mathematicians available at mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Indian_mathematics/ Fittingly, India's first artificial satellite was named Aryabhata, after the ancient Indian mathematician and astronomer (see mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Aryabhata_I/ ) who had calculated the value of Pi and the circumference of the Earth - almost 1,500 years ago.

[@michael_toms]

'adopted very quickly', Prof Clemency says to the second last audience question (1:01:39). Not so quick amongst the Jesuit order of the 16th century, and in Florence, it was a criminal offence to be seen using a decimal system fond of zero. What comes after one? The thought of 0.00001 would put you in jail for being a thinking mathematician.