Bakhshali manuscript: oldest recorded use of the zero symbol | Hacker News Reader

Bakhshali manuscript: oldest recorded use of the zero symbol

theguardian.com

84 points_nh_28 comments

> Now scientists have traced the origins of this conceptual leap to an ancient Indian text, known as the Bakhshali manuscript – a text which has been housed in the UK since 1902.

"Housed" is a nice soft word for stealing. The English plundered all kinds of treasure from the lands they invaded and annexed. This and even the Rosetta Stone from Egypt.

(saying this as an Indian).

[EDIT: Why the downvotes? by 1900 the English, French and Dutch had invaded and colonized 90% of Africa and Asia. Source: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00maplinks/colo... ]

I believe they have a certain large diamond as well they stole from India and they would like it back.

Yes. The Kohinoor Diamond.

Related: India pushes for return of its “Kohinoor” Diamond Back from Britain => https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11542689

Not just one diamond. Many more treasures are stolen. If they give back everything, they wouldn't have anything left.

I do not doubt that at all. They only left India once they stole everything of value.

Unfortunately I know only about the diamond. But I believe you that there is much more than just that.

There was no shortage of outright stealing but it doesn't seem to be the case here. For one thing, it likely wasn't seen (other than by specialists) as a cultural artifact of quite the importance we give it today. The accounts of its discovery and early work done on it don't say anything about theft (including the Indian ones I can find). The fact it was found in what is today Pakistan probably means nobody on any side wants to as much as think about the can of worms any discussion about repatriation would be.

Far from all artifacts held by the English were stolen. Plenty were bought. Yes, things like keeping the Parthenon marbles are bullshit, but that doesn't mean that everything originating from outside the British isles was stolen.

to the victor go the spoils

> The English plundered [...] (saying this as an Indian).

I find it interesting that expensive physical artifacts loom larger than impalpables such as language and political system.

(The 'Pirates of the Caribbean' were pikers compared to Hume and Locke ...)

The downvotes here just go on to show the inherent racial bias of quite a few commenters here. The argument is simple. Either you think conquest, enslavement and exploitation of peoples around the world was right or you may think that was the unfortunate relic of the past and we must all move on. If you think it was wrong, then you should return the cultural relics plundered from the erstwhile colonies.

Seeing this manuscript "housed" in the UK is just sad. Seeing people continuing to support this situation just shows what really lies beneath the surface of "western civilization".

Some people also thing that "we must all move on" also involves not trying to rectify or unravel everything that was done that was wrong, and/or think that it is hypocritical to e.g. want to undo acts related to colonization without e.g. also push for radically reshaping all other property relationships, which have similarly problematic origins.

To assume it's all racial is just as sad.

Well it is racial. What is really sad that you want to still be one of the good guys while supporting a clearly immoral thing. It would be more respectable, and less pathetic, to just accept your pride in the actions of the colonizers, no matter what the consequences of those actions were for the colonized.

And what property rights are you even referring to? The relic in question is a physical item that can be moved without affecting those that continue to possess the stolen item in any way. It's certainly not something those who possess the item have earned. It's not even land that you have long settled, which may be much harder to part with.

Continuing to hold on to it just says, "Yeah our ancestors were a bunch of bandits. We don't apologize for it". Why would anyone move on when one of the parties holds such an attitude? Let alone the aggrieved party.

Try reading my comment again, as you don't seem to have understood a word of the intent of it, and is ascribing me opinions that the comment does not in any way support.

It's the top comment which is probably a sensible reminder it's silly to go on about downvotes, let alone in reply to a part of a comment going on about downvotes.

It's funny you chose to extend it then.

I think this article fails to capture the importance of zero. While the idea of zero itself isn't staggeringly mind blowing, the real greatness with zero came in with development of decimal/ Hindu (positional) numerical system and zero indicating nothing in a position which led to simplicity in doing arithmetic.

For example can you think of the rules to multiply XVIV with XXV or can you quickly calculate what the result of that will be without translating to a decimal number system ? Exactly!

With the use of zero and the the development of rules for decimal arithmetic (Brahmagupta), the hindu numeral system became superior to the roman numeral system and thus led to its wide adoption (The decimal number system was promoted by Fibonacci in the west and some people consider that to be his greatest achievement).

Rather than type it out, this link gives a good rundown:

http://www.actforlibraries.org/the-importance-of-zero-in-mat...

Namely, I think you don't give poor zero quite enough respect. Zero is one of the biggest advancements to mathematics. Anyone can count to one, and even count multiple sets of one. The idea that nothing is something is underrated.

Poor zero is often not given due credit.

There were positional number systems before there was a separate symbol for zero. People weren't flailing about with Roman numerals or similar systems until a symbol for zero was invented.

>For example can you think of the rules to multiply XVIV with XXV or can you quickly calculate what the result of that will be without translating to a decimal number system ? Exactly!

Well, very likely the Romans had some tricks to do that (and besides very likely they did use an abacus), the fact that it appears difficult to us (having been immersed in positional notation) does not mean much.

This algorithm (making use of halving and doubling) doesn't look so bad:

http://rbutterworth.nfshost.com/Tables/romanmult

and it can be used also with our "positional" numbers.

http://www.phy6.org/outreach/edu/roman.htm

The abacus (the Chinese "suanpan" or a derivative of it, as it is still used in some eastern countries) is - in the hands of someone used to it - very fast, I have seen people be on par or outperform a "westerner" trying to do the same operation on a pocket calculator, I wouldn't be surprised if the Romans abacus was as fast as that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_abacus

the base as decimal (or actually bi-quinary) is the same.

Did you read my other comment about why Fibonacci promoted the decimal number system? Because, at least he thought in his qualitative assessment that the Decimal number system was better and he brought in its adoption in the roman world (Feel free to look it up).

All I was trying to say was the article is very superficial and does not capture the "real value" zero eventually provided.

Highly recommend "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" [1] if you're interested in learning more about the number zero.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Biography-Dangerous-Charles-Seif...

Seems like fake history...

American mathematical society has a featured column related to use of zero in India: http://www.ams.org/samplings/feature-column/fcarc-india-zero...

Didn't Aryabhatta, the one who invented zero, live in an era much earlier than the 3rd or 4th century ?

aryabhatta was between 476 to 550 AD

really??

Thanka for the link, upvoted.

Tangential note: This is what I don't like about the so-called hackers not upvoting stuff unrelated to the Western world.

I upvoted this submission, as did a large number of other people who probably live in the Western world. Do you think your comment is likely to increase or decrease upvotes?

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