Question

Brahmagupta’s book is the oldest text representing zero as a number, using the symbol 0. Why was this a mathematical breakthrough?

Answer 1

Understanding zero as a number represented by the symbol 0 enabled mathematicians to have a representation of nothing. Having a digit to represent zero enables mathematics to be more abstract, and allows more complex problems to be solved.

Answer 2

The concept of zero is one of the most important mathematical ideas that humans have developed. In our current society, the number "zero" is used in two main ways: as a place holder (for example, 204 and 24 are different because the "0" is used as a placeholder for the tens) and as a representation of "nothing." However, understanding "nothing" as a mathematical concept is extremely difficult, because there is no counterpart that we can observe in the physical world.

This difficulty is why the representation of zero as a number was a mathematical breakthrough. It allows us to represent things that cannot be experienced in the physical world, such as nothingness or negative numbers. It also enables us to perform calculations that are extremely complex. This ultimately is the basis of technology, and of the world as we know it.