In two articles [BaiBor2011a; BaiBor2011b], two earlier blog posts [BlogA; BlogB] and a Conversation piece, we have examined the discovery and development of our modern system of decimal arithmetic with zero, which discovery we believe to be among the greatest of all historical mathematical achievements. It is certainly nontrivial, as evidenced by the fact that it escaped even Archimedes, that extraordinary genius of the ~300 BCE Greek culture who anticipated much of modern mathematics, including numerical analysis and calculus. And the impact of this ingenious discovery in our modern computer-oriented society cannot be overstated.
One key aspect of this history
Continue reading That mysterious but important number zero