Zero, Zilch, Zip, Goose Egg, Nil, Nothing, Nada, None, Non-Entity
No matter what you call 0, it has a special place in math, in history, in philosophy, and even in religion.
A Brief History
Many different cultures are given credit for inventing the concept of zero in math, including the Sumerians, Babylonians, Indians, Arabians, Olmecs and Mayans. Some of these cultures only used 0 to express the quantity of nothing. Others used it as a placeholder in a base 10 or base 20 system. Some European governments actually outlawed the use of the symbol 0 because of their distrust in the Arabic numeral system. Brahmagupta, Al-Khwarizmi, Fibonacci, Descartes, Newton, and Leibniz were among the mathematicians to codify the mathematical concepts of zero in branches of math like accounting, algebra, trigonometry, and calculus.
Some Cool Facts about Zero
· It is neither a positive or negative number.
· It is neither a prime nor a composite number.
· Zero is an even number. An even number is divisible by 2 without any remainders.
· Dividing zero by any number, including the number 2, is always zero.
· Multiplying any number by zero is always zero.
· Dividing any number by zero has no answer.
· You can add or subtract zero to any quantity and not change the quantity.
· Zeros in some places significantly change the value of the number. 40000.000001 is very different from 4.1
· Zeros in other places don’t affect the value at all. 4.1= 00000000004.100000000000
Love Math?
At Mathnasium of Parker we love math too! If you want to go deeper into math than you do at school, come check us out. Together we will explore all kinds of cool math ideas.
This article was written by and owned by Cuttlefish Copywriting, www.cuttlefishcopywriting.com . It is copyright protected. Mathnasium of Parker has permission to use it. Other Mathnasium locations should contact Heather at [email protected] before using it.
