The document discusses the origins and importance of the number zero. It notes that zero was independently discovered by the Mayans and Indians, with the Indians representing it as a dot and the Mayans using a pair of wedges. The concept of zero spread to the Arabic world and was represented as a circle. It was introduced to Europe in the 9th century by an Italian mathematician. The document emphasizes that life would be much more complicated without zero, as it is a fundamental part of modern number systems like binary used in computers.

1. By: Shreya Thakrar 7KBE

2. The number zero is the very important digit in
our lives.
In actual fact zero means nothing but when the
same zero is placed in front of a number it
increases the value by a tenth. If you do the
same thing before a point (decimal) it reduces
the value. So zero is very valuable in our lives
and you will find out why.

3. The number zero we use today in the Hindu-
Arabic numeral system was originated in India
at around 650 AD.
Two civilizations coincidently invented the
number zero. One was made by the Mayan
culture and the other civilization was the
Indian culture.
The Mayans indicated zero by a pair of wedges
and the Indians (Hindus) indicated the zero as
a dot.
The Arab’s then changed it into a circle. Which
is being followed today.

6. The term ‘number system’ means a set of numbers. The
ancients are the creators of different types of number
systems for example:
 The roman numerals
 Egyptian numerals
 Mayan numerals
 The Babylonian numerals
 And many more.
Out of all these the only people who discovered zero
were the Mayans. The others did have a number system
that was very complex due to the lack of having the
number zero. The numbers had to be written using
shapes and letters which was quite confusing to
understand, as compared to today’s number system.

8. It was roughly 870 AD zero came to Europe.
The European who brought zero to Europe was
called Fibonacci from Italy who adopted it
from Mohammed-ibn-muna-al-Khowarizmi. The
concept of zero that was adopted by the
Europeans, was initially put in place in the 19th
century by Mohammed-ibn-muna-al-
Khowarizmi from the Middle East who was took
this idea from the Indians
Fibonacci went on to write a book called Liber
Abaci (book of calculations).

10.  Just imagine if we, today, did not have the
number zero. Life would be very
complicated, and wonder how the computers
would work without zero as it uses the
binary number system. Imagine you counting
money where no zero’s were involved and
imagine if we were to follow the other
number systems. Wonder how the currencies
would be printed How complex our lives
would be without zero.

12.  ShreyaThakrar7KBEUnit5InvestigationTask1b.docx
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Hindu–Arabic_numeral_system
 http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/about/zero.jsp
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Pisa
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_(number)
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmagupta
 http://www.famousscientists.org/muhammad-ibn-musa-al-khwarizmi/
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liber_Abaci
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/René_Descartes
 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-is-the-origin-of-zer
 http://tricksblower.blogspot.com/2011/02/weird-interesting-and-fun-facts.html
 http://www.virtualmv.com/virtualMe/vMe_mv/v2/v2com/v2kb/da/danshi00.htm
 http://dermajetics.ultra.pl/hymn/mapero.htm
 http://mathtricks.org/tag/binomial-expansion/
 http://www.innovationtools.com/weblog/innovationblog-detail.asp?ArticleID=1489
 Shreya.Thakrar7KBE Unit Question v3.docx
 http://www.mathsisfun.com/binary-number-system.html
 http://www.archimedes-lab.org/numbers/Num1_69.html