An ancient Indian manuscript full of mathematical calculations has been found to be the earliest recorded use of the number “zero.” Bodleian Libraries Researchers are challenging a claim that an ...

One of the biggest mathematical achievements in human history has to do with the origin of nothing—or zero, to be more specific. Researchers at the University of Oxford's Bodleian Library recently ...

A black dot on a third-century Indian manuscript has been identified by Oxford University as the first recorded use of the mathematical symbol for zero, 500 years earlier than previously thought.

The number zero is something we all take for granted, yet its conceptual origin has eluded archaeologists and historians. An updated analysis of an ancient Indian manuscript is shedding new light on ...

Detail of the Bakhshali manuscript, with a dot used in the bottom line, a placeholder that is recognized as the earliest zero symbol (courtesy Bodleian Libraries/ University of Oxford) Radiocarbon ...

The surprising results of the first ever radiocarbon dating on the Bakhshali manuscript, which contains hundreds of zeroes, reveals that it dates from as early as the third or fourth century, some ...

Scientists have discovered evidence of the zero symbol in the Indian Bakhshali manuscript, a mathematical text which was discovered in 1881. Carbon dating indicates tha the manuscript dates from as ...

A small dot on an old piece of birch bark marks one of the biggest events in the history of mathematics. The bark is actually part of an ancient Indian mathematical document known as the Bakhshali ...

LONDON — A black dot on a third-century Indian manuscript has been identified by Oxford University as the first recorded use of the mathematical symbol for zero, 500 years earlier than previously ...

A small dot on an old piece of birch bark marks one of the biggest events in the history of mathematics. The bark is actually part of an ancient Indian mathematical document known as the Bakhshali ...