Talk:0/Archive 3

Reference
"By the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, the Babylonian mathematics had a sophisticated sexagesimal positional numeral system. The lack of a positional value (or zero) was indicated by a space between sexagesimal numerals. In a tablet unearthed at Kish (dating to as early as 700 BC), the scribe Bêl-bân-aplu used three hooks as a placeholder in the same Babylonian system." [16]

Reference ''Kaplan, Robert. (2000). The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero. Oxford: Oxford University Press.''     →     P.12

— Preceding unsigned comment added by PetrusPetros (talk • contribs) 05:56, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Possible misleading information
This part: This permits an array element's location to be calculated by adding the index directly to address of the array, whereas 1-based languages precalculate the array's base address to be the position one element before the first.[citation needed]

It's only true if the size in memory of each array element is the same as the 1 "byte". And even this is not guaranteed since depends on the programming language definitions, OS and even processor instructions.

Just a quick example: An integer array will, in most programming languages, allocate 4 bytes for each array element.

Please correct me if I am mistaken! I just found that part very odd.

Sorry for the trouble. 2804:1AC:5819:344:9DB3:E76F:8008:5935 (talk) 05:10, 31 December 2022 (UTC)


 * I removed that sentence for being off-topic. But, basically, if you count from 1, then an additional subtraction step is necessary, which is elided if you count from 0. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:45, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Reordering of hsitory section
I don't see any legitimate reason to reorder the history section, aside from an attempt to move India higher on the page. I submit that this should be reverted. Thoughts? MrOllie (talk) 18:30, 29 January 2023 (UTC)


 * The Indian development came later than China and Classical Antiquity both chronologically and alphabetically. The changed order looks a bit like 111AAA Plumbing grabbing first place in the Yellow Pages.  Revert. Certes (talk) 19:17, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Most readers would know the region of India, regardless of era, as India. At the very least, the article must be restored to the status quo, until there is any consensus to make the change. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:23, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
 * 0 was on my watchlist, and I agree that it must be restored to the status quo. &#8212;CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 07:39, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
 * So long as we recount the history of 0 by region (which may be unavoidable but does give the impression that developments in China, India, south-west Asia and Egypt were independent and there was no communication or trade between those regions), there'll be overlap in periods, but broadly speaking we should order the subsections chronologically according to the most significant periods in each, and describing an influential development (eg Babylonian) before the effect of that influence (eg Greek). Alphabetical ordering would be capricious and unhelpful.
 * As for referring to India as "Bharata (India)", this encyclopedia normally refers to "India" and "Indian", for example in articles linked in this article's India subsection – Pingala, Śūnyatā, Lokavibhaga, Jain, Aryabhatiya and more – and in the text of this article "The concept of zero as a written digit in the decimal place value notation was developed in India." We would fail to serve our readers around the world if we stopped doing so, and here might even be accused of deliberately obscuring the Indian development of 0. Using an ancient name to raise India up an alphabetical list is as absurd as relocating Babylon to Egypt. NebY (talk) 20:31, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
 * As the administrator who protected this article, could you please instate the talk page consensus? Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:11, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Is zero a Number?
nope its a symbol Owen02212011 (talk) 16:25, 7 March 2023 (UTC)


 * It was something the Egyptians created to mean nothing in the sort Owen02212011 (talk) 16:27, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 April 2023
Under the mathematics section, it states that 0 is an even number because it is evenly divided by 2 with no remainder...this is not correct. 0 is not divided evenly by 2. 174.62.3.242 (talk) 08:05, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate.  — Paper9oll  (🔔 • 📝)  08:25, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
 * "it states that 0 is an even number because it is evenly divided by 2 with no remainder...this is not correct. 0 is not divided evenly by 2."
 * This is simply an incorrect statement. Two incorrect statements in two sentences, actually.
 * If you look up wikipedia's own article on Parity (mathematics), which discusses the definitions of even and odd numbers, you will see that 0 is specifically listed as an example of an even number. 2605:A601:AE17:9C00:7D92:16C5:BF08:2FC1 (talk) 00:49, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Unsupported statement
The current version of the article states: "The idea that 0 is a number just like 1, 2, 3, etc. was likely figured out very early, as soon as numbers were used to keep track of any type of trade, since having none of an item was just as possible as having several of them, and was well established pre-history. Most of the following is discussing zero as a placeholding digit, not as a number."

This is a completely unsupported statement - and beyond that, almost certainly incorrect.

Yes, people certainly figured out early on that if you have three sheep, and then you give away three sheep, now you have no sheep. But the issue is, did they conceptualize "0 [as] a number just like 1, 2, 3, etc." and the answer is, almost certainly they did not.

It is one thing to understand "I don't have any sheep" or "I am not holding up any fingers" or "I don't have any money " or "my abacus totals no value". It is another thing entirely to have a specific number to write down that concept, on the same basis as you are able to write down 1, 2, 3, and the other counting numbers, and yet another thing to consider that number to be on equal footing with the other numbers in the sense that you can add it, subtract it, multiply it, and divide with it (or understand why that final operation causes problems).

If they did have that level of understanding of the number zero, they would have had, at a minimum, a symbol for zero - not just a placeholder used in certain specific situations where we would use the numeral '0' today, but not in other similar situations and never all alone. And we would not have had centuries of struggle and partial solutions to the thorny issue of how to deal with "nothing" as both a placeholder in number systems and as a number itself. We would have had instructional materials explaining how to add zero, how to multiply and divide by zero, and all such similar things.

What we have is nothing of the sort until very late.

As Robert Kaplan writes in The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero regarding the Greek number system ca. the 4th Century B.C.: "There was still a long way to go from the key insertion in writing of a sign for 'nothing in this column' to such symbols as '106' or '41.005°' (the 'numerical' form of 41° 00'18")" (pp. 19-20) and "In other words, 'nothing' wasn't a thing, a number, but a condition" (p. 22).

In short, unless someone can provide actual support for this sentence, and reliable citations backing it up, it should be removed entirely. 2605:A601:AE17:9C00:7D92:16C5:BF08:2FC1 (talk) 00:45, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Based on the above information I edited the sentence mentioned and replaced it with an accurate statement with citation. Bhugh (talk) 01:03, 4 June 2023 (UTC)


 * I've removed the statement entirely. Neither the old nor the new one was cited and neither was encyclopedic in tone, and didn't add anything to the article. The section does not need a summary opening paragraph.  WP scatter  t/c 01:06, 4 June 2023 (UTC)