Talk:0/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Reference

"By the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, the Babylonian mathematics had a sophisticated sexagesimal positional numeral system. The lack of a positional value (or zero) was indicated by a space between sexagesimal numerals. In a tablet unearthed at Kish (dating to as early as 700 BC), the scribe Bêl-bân-aplu used three hooks as a placeholder in the same Babylonian system." [16]

Reference

Kaplan, Robert. (2000). The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero. Oxford: Oxford University Press.      →     P.12

— Preceding unsigned comment added by PetrusPetros (talk • contribs) 05:56, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Possible misleading information

This part: This permits an array element's location to be calculated by adding the index directly to address of the array, whereas 1-based languages precalculate the array's base address to be the position one element before the first.[citation needed]

It's only true if the size in memory of each array element is the same as the 1 "byte". And even this is not guaranteed since depends on the programming language definitions, OS and even processor instructions.

Just a quick example: An integer array will, in most programming languages, allocate 4 bytes for each array element.

Please correct me if I am mistaken! I just found that part very odd.

Sorry for the trouble. 2804:1AC:5819:344:9DB3:E76F:8008:5935 (talk) 05:10, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I removed that sentence for being off-topic. But, basically, if you count from 1, then an additional subtraction step is necessary, which is elided if you count from 0. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:45, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Reordering of hsitory section

I don't see any legitimate reason to reorder the history section, aside from an attempt to move India higher on the page. I submit that this should be reverted. Thoughts? MrOllie (talk) 18:30, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

The Indian development came later than China and Classical Antiquity both chronologically and alphabetically. The changed order looks a bit like 111AAA Plumbing grabbing first place in the Yellow Pages. Revert. Certes (talk) 19:17, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Most readers would know the region of India, regardless of era, as India. At the very least, the article must be restored to the status quo, until there is any consensus to make the change. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:23, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

0 was on my watchlist, and I agree that it must be restored to the status quo. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 07:39, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

So long as we recount the history of 0 by region (which may be unavoidable but does give the impression that developments in China, India, south-west Asia and Egypt were independent and there was no communication or trade between those regions), there'll be overlap in periods, but broadly speaking we should order the subsections chronologically according to the most significant periods in each, and describing an influential development (eg Babylonian) before the effect of that influence (eg Greek). Alphabetical ordering would be capricious and unhelpful.

As for referring to India as "Bharata (India)", this encyclopedia normally refers to "India" and "Indian", for example in articles linked in this article's India subsection – Pingala, Śūnyatā, Lokavibhaga, Jain, Aryabhatiya and more – and in the text of this article "The concept of zero as a written digit in the decimal place value notation was developed in India." We would fail to serve our readers around the world if we stopped doing so, and here might even be accused of deliberately obscuring the Indian development of 0. Using an ancient name to raise India up an alphabetical list is as absurd as relocating Babylon to Egypt. NebY (talk) 20:31, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: As the administrator who protected this article, could you please instate the talk page consensus? Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:11, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Is zero a Number?

nope its a symbol Owen02212011 (talk) 16:25, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

It was something the Egyptians created to mean nothing in the sort Owen02212011 (talk) 16:27, 7 March 2023 (UTC)