[lit-ideas] Re: Simon's World [a zero sum game]
- From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 07 May 2006 15:28:12 -0700
Andreas wrote:
India is seen by the West as a land of religious fervor. It lacks the
Western principles of science and rational inquiry, which are necessary
for democracy. Oh, really? India developed philosophical schools of
atheism which have been active for 2,000 years. In contrast, people were
burned at the stake in Europe in the 1700s for atheism. Science and
mathematics? Those zeros in 2,000? India invented those. And the decimal
system as well. The next time you pay $0.25 for a newspaper, thank India.
The history of zero (or zed) is fascinating. It has three important
aspects: the invention of a notation (0); the use of zero as a
positional marker (e.g. in differentiating 2006 from 206 or 26); and its
use as a number. The last is perhaps the most important and interesting,
and it's clear that the great Indian mathematicians are largely
responsible for this discovery (if you're a Platonist) or this invention
(if you're a Formalist). There is though nothing in the history of
mathematics that would count as the invention of zero tout court.
There's a nice history of zero at
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/HistTopics/Zero.html
Robert Paul
Reed College
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