The evolution of Hindu-Arabic numeral system...

Ajay0 · Sep 5, 2021

A great article by HistoryExtra , on the Hindu-Arabic numeral system and mathematics which originated in India, and its evolution down the centuries.

Digital revolution: the evolution of Hindu-Arabic numerals

(HistoryExtra is the official website for BBC History Magazine and BBC History Revealed. )

It is impossible today to imagine a world without what are known as Hindu-Arabic numerals. These nine symbols or digits (1 to 9) and zero (0) – crucially, together with the system of arranging them in place value – are at the very heart of so much of modern life. Without them there would be no computers and no space travel. Indeed, there would be precious little science, technology or medicine of any kind, to say nothing of mathematics itself.

Try to add LIX to VII and you’ll quickly understand why maths would not have evolved far with the Roman numeric system.

~ Violet Moller (historian, writer)
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Ajay0 · Aug 2, 2024

Article on ancient India's impact on the world with mathematics.

Five ways ancient India changed the world – with maths

It should come as no surprise that the first recorded use of the number zero, recently discovered to be made as early as the 3rd or 4th century, happened in India. Mathematics on the Indian subcontinent has a rich history going back over 3,000 years and thrived for centuries before similar advances were made in Europe, with its influence meanwhile spreading to China and the Middle East.

As well as giving us the concept of zero, Indian mathematicians made seminal contributions to the study of trigonometry, algebra, arithmetic and negative numbers among other areas. Perhaps most significantly, the decimal system that we still employ worldwide today was first seen in India.
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wilsjane · Aug 3, 2024

Ajay0 said: ↑

A great article by HistoryExtra , on the Hindu-Arabic numeral system and mathematics which originated in India, and its evolution down the centuries.

Digital revolution: the evolution of Hindu-Arabic numerals

(HistoryExtra is the official website for BBC History Magazine and BBC History Revealed. )
Click to expand...

LIX + VII = LXVI What is difficult,?

wilsjane · Aug 3, 2024

The biggest problem with metric in engineering, is that 10 cannot be divided by 3 without a recurring decimal.
I do all my designs in imperial, I still love the slide-rule. LOL

Ajay0 · Jan 3, 2025

Award winning British historian and writer William Dalrymple on India's mathematical contributions and legacy, and criticism of the west-centric history and narratives of modern science and mathematics...

‘In Britain, we are still astonishingly ignorant’: the hidden story of how ancient India shaped the west

The ideas of these two men, bringing together the mathematical learning of ancient India, travelled first to the Arab world, then far to the west, giving us not only crucial mathematical concepts such as zero, but the very form of the numbers we use today. In Britain, our education still gives us the impression that most of the great scientific advances of antiquity were the productof the brilliance of ancient Greece. We learn about Pythagoras and Archimedes at primary school, but mathematicians of equal stature of Indian background are still completely unfamiliar to most of us, and neither Brahmagupta nor Aryabhata are names that will ring any bells at all in this country beyond a tiny group of academics.

It was they who perfected the numeral system in use around the world, arguably the nearest thing the human race has to a universal language; yet in the west, we attribute our numerals to the Arabs from whom we borrowed them, not the Indians who actually invented them.

In Britain, we are still quite astonishingly ignorant about India’s often forgotten position as an economic fulcrum, and civilisational engine at the heart of the ancient and early medieval worlds.
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Ajay0 · Jan 14, 2026

Article on ancient Indian mathematics and the role of zero in history of mathematics.

INDIAN MATHEMATICS & MATHEMATICIANS

The earliest recorded usage of a circle character for the number zero is usually attributed to a 9th Century engraving in a temple in Gwalior in central India. But the brilliant conceptual leap to include zero as a number in its own right (rather than merely as a placeholder, a blank or empty space within a number, as it had been treated until that time) is usually credited to the 7th Century Indian mathematicians Brahmagupta – or possibly another Indian, Bhaskara I – even though it may well have been in practical use for centuries before that. The use of zero as a number which could be used in calculations and mathematical investigations, would revolutionize mathematics.
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