Who invented zero?

Counting is ancient, but the idea that ‘nothing’ deserves its own number is surprisingly new — and it is India’s gift to the world.

Early civilisations left a gap or a dot to show an empty place, but they did not treat it as a number you could calculate with. The breakthrough came in India. In 628 CE the mathematician Brahmagupta wrote down rules for using zero: a number plus zero is itself, a number times zero is zero.

The oldest known written zero in the world, a dot in an inscription at the Chaturbhuj temple in Gwalior, dates from 876 CE. Arab scholars carried the Indian numerals west, which is why Europe calls them ‘Arabic numerals’.

Without zero there is no place value — no way to tell 5 from 50 from 500 — and no algebra, no computers. Every digital device on Earth runs on ones and zeros.