WEBVTT - The Number Zero Might Be Older Than We Thought

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works, Hey, brain Stuff.

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<v Speaker 1>In mathematics, zero has two meanings. It can mean nothing,

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<v Speaker 1>I eat, I have zero dollars in my bank account,

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<v Speaker 1>or it can serve as a placeholder that's part of

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<v Speaker 1>a larger number, indicating that it is a multiple of ten.

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<v Speaker 1>As Robert Kaplan details in his book The Nothing That

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<v Speaker 1>Is a Natural History of Zero, about five thousand years ago,

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<v Speaker 1>the ancient Sumerians, who lived in what is now a

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<v Speaker 1>rock came up with the basic concept of zero as

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<v Speaker 1>a placeholder instead of the zero that we used today,

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<v Speaker 1>though they drew complicated combinations of wedges, lines, and spaces

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<v Speaker 1>in clay tablets to indicate it. Kaplan explains that the

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<v Speaker 1>concept was adopted by the Babylonians, who passed it along

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<v Speaker 1>by way of the ancient Greeks to India, where Arab

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<v Speaker 1>traders picked it up and eventually brought it back to

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<v Speaker 1>medieval Europe. Somewhere along the way, the wedges that signified

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<v Speaker 1>zero the placeholder evolved into a solid dot, which was

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<v Speaker 1>the precursor of the zero that we know today. For

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<v Speaker 1>a long time, it was believed that the earliest example

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<v Speaker 1>of that was an inscription on the wall of a

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<v Speaker 1>temple of Guali, or India, which dates back to seventh

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<v Speaker 1>century CE. But now researchers have found evidence of an

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<v Speaker 1>even earlier example. The Bakshali Manuscript, and Indian mathematical text

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<v Speaker 1>written on seventy pieces of birch bark, was discovered back

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<v Speaker 1>in one by someone digging in the soil in the

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<v Speaker 1>village of Bakshali in what is now Pakistan. The exact

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<v Speaker 1>age of the manuscript has long been a subject of controversy,

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<v Speaker 1>but the most authoritative answer to date, based on an

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<v Speaker 1>analysis by Japanese scholar Toko Hayashi, seemed to place it

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<v Speaker 1>between seven hundred and eleven hundred CE. Recently, the University

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<v Speaker 1>of Oxford's Bodlian Libraries, which has possessed the manuscript since

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen o two, commissioned a carbon dating study of it.

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<v Speaker 1>The new study revealed that the manuscript actually may date

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<v Speaker 1>as far back as two hundred to three hundred CE,

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<v Speaker 1>making it the oldest example of the dot that later

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<v Speaker 1>evolved into zero now. According to Bodlian's press release, the

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<v Speaker 1>concept of zero as a number in its own right,

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<v Speaker 1>one with a value of nothing, didn't come along until

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<v Speaker 1>several centuries after the Bakshali Manuscript was written, it first

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<v Speaker 1>appears in a text by the Indian astronomer and mathematician

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<v Speaker 1>Rama Gupta. Today's episode was written by Patrick J. Kiger,

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<v Speaker 1>produced by Tristan McNeil, and For more on this and

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<v Speaker 1>other topics, please visit us at how stuff works dot com.