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Zero — A 1500-Year Voyage
What changes when “nothing” is treated both as a placeholder and within arithmetic? Zero was not invented once and carried west in a straight line. Indian notation and rules, Arabic mathematics, Latin translations, commercial arithmetic, and binary notation reshaped it for different needs.
1 min628–1703
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Bhillamala
Brahmagupta Systematizes Arithmetic with Zero
In the *Brahmasphutasiddhanta*, Brahmagupta stated connected rules for fortunes, debts, and zero. Zero notation and ideas were older, but this was a major explicit organization of positive, negative, and zero arithmetic. His rule for division by zero was not correct by modern standards.
Replay on the map from scene 1Scene index