The Zero Used To Be A Dot

HISTORY A carbon dating of a mathematical manuscript shows that the seed for one of the major moments in maths were planted all the way back in the third century. In 628 AD, Indian Brahma-gupta shocked the mathematicians of the time when introducing 0 as a number in its own right. The new number revolutionised mathematics, but the 0 did exist before – in another form:

In a manuscript from the Pakistani village of Bakhshali, the 0s are small dots that function as placeholders, used to build large numbers such as 101 and 102. The Babylonians and others used similar placeholders. But this is the early evidence of using such a placeholder to represent zero.

Hundreds of zeros adorn the 70 pages of the manuscript, made from birch bark.