The Nothing That Is, by Robert Kaplan is an intriguing book that focuses on the history of civilizations and their ways of counting. It focuses on the struggles and revolutionary discoveries of different civilizations in their number systems. The book is pushed forward by focusing on the concept of the number “0” which had not been a thing or even a thought then. Zero has been in the making for thousands of years. It wasn’t introduced into any of the civilizations sets of counting until more recent years. Originally numbers showed up in early civilizations written on clay, symbols were used unlike the numbers we have now such as rows of lines or symbols. When counting and writing numbers they had to use long lists of symbols which was
…show more content…
They began to develop more theories and concepts to make their lives easier with counting. Many of these civilizations began to create a concept of nothing. This nothing is what eventually will evolve and develop into our modern day zero. The Indians used a symbol of an “M” with an “o” on top of it to symbolize “by the power of 1000” which started the investigation towards a symbol for nothing. Soon after the Alexandrians and Mayans started to use actual symbols for something that resembles nothing. They used patterns such as tattooed men wearing jewelry to symbolize this. With this concept of zero mathematicians began to do complex math equations to work out problems they saw in shapes and other things in nature (x2 + 3x – 22). These concepts started growing and they expanded upon every single discovery and now we use many of these methods in our modern-day algebra or geometry. Further into the future, many advancements in counting have come about. The concept of zero has been for the most part finished and polished. In the 1600’s many of the modern math’s that we learn in school have been developed by scientists and mathematicians like Isaac Newton and Leibniz. These math’s were based around the concept of zero just as many methods of math are. The most notorious of these being calculus
They began to develop more theories and concepts to make their lives easier with counting. Many of these civilizations began to create a concept of nothing. This nothing is what eventually will evolve and develop into our modern day zero. The Indians used a symbol of an “M” with an “o” on top of it to symbolize “by the power of 1000” which started the investigation towards a symbol for nothing. Soon after the Alexandrians and Mayans started to use actual symbols for something that resembles nothing. They used patterns such as tattooed men wearing jewelry to symbolize this. With this concept of zero mathematicians began to do complex math equations to work out problems they saw in shapes and other things in nature (x2 + 3x – 22). These concepts started growing and they expanded upon every single discovery and now we use many of these methods in our modern-day algebra or geometry. Further into the future, many advancements in counting have come about. The concept of zero has been for the most part finished and polished. In the 1600’s many of the modern math’s that we learn in school have been developed by scientists and mathematicians like Isaac Newton and Leibniz. These math’s were based around the concept of zero just as many methods of math are. The most notorious of these being calculus