Discovery of Zero...
Reader comment on item: Dinesh D'Souza Walks on the Dark Side
in response to reader comment: who discovered the zero?

Submitted by Mitra (Australia), Sep 10, 2009 at 07:25

I agree with Dr. Mukhopadhya. Wiki answer says: The concept of zero as a number and not merely a symbol for separation is attributed to India where by the 9th century CE practical calculations were carried out using zero, which was treated like any other number, even in case of divisionThe Indian scholar Pingala (circa 5th-2nd century BCE) used binary numbers in the form of short and long syllables (the latter equal in length to two short syllables), making it similar to Morse code .He and his contemporary Indian scholars used the Sanskrit word śūnya to refer to zero or void. Emipircal evidence for the same:Gaayathre shadsankhyaamardhe apaneethe dvayanke avasishtasthrayastheshu roopamapaneeya dvayankaadha: soonyam sthaapyam- PINGALACHARYA IN CHANDA SASTRA 200 B.C.

I am now certain that we Indian have not taken the trouble to get even our own history right. No Aryabhatta did not discover zero...we merely used it in complex calculations. And saying he he was India's first mathematician is an utter disgrace to the to all the scholars before him. As always with our tendency to trust the western evidence more here is a link: http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Indexes/Indians.html 800 BC Baudhayana 600 Bhaskara I 1060 Brahmadeva 750 BC Manava 720 Lalla 1114 Bhaskara II 600 BC Apastamba 800 Govindasvami 1340 Mahendra Suri 520 BC Panini 800 Mahavira 1340 Narayana 200 BC Katyayana 830 Prthudakasvami 1350 Madhava 120 AD Yavanesvara 840 Sankara 1370 Paramesvara 476 Aryabhata I 870 Sridhara 1444 Nilakantha 500 Yativrsabha 920 Aryabhata II 1500 Jyesthadeva 505 Varahamihira 940 Vijayanandi 1616 Kamalakara 598 Brahmagupta 1019 Sripati 1690 Jagannatha

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