Zero: the End where we start again
India invented zero and the Arabs gave it to the world. Without zero mathematics wouldn’t have progressed much. Imagine writing 999 in Roman numerals. CMXCIX. And thousand is just M. How far can you go with that sort of a numeral system? Zero changed it all. Zero brought about a revolution in mathematics. It changed the course of human thought more profoundly than most grand ideas. Yet, with all the humility that is characteristic of India’s mysticism (unlike its mythology), we called this great number shoonya , empty. Zero is both emptiness and possibility, a void that does not merely negate, but enables. Ten can become hundred with just one zero. And so on. The entire arithmetic of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division would have been nearly impossible without zero. Yet, India named it ‘emptiness.’ We, in Kerala, gave zero a more honourable name. Poojyam , we call it. Honourable is the meaning. But shoonyata or emptiness is not a negative concept in India....
