Cambodia invented Zero - 683 AD
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Bitte_Kein_Lexus
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Re: Cambodia invented Zero - 683 AD
Not really. The Romans built with amazing precision and the Greeks are still amazing for their use of geometry/mathematics. Eratosthenes famously accurately determined the circumference of the earth to give one example of many.newkidontheblock wrote:It’s not just who invented it. It’s who actually spread the knowledge to the rest of the world. Without the Arabic system 1,2,3 etc., combined with zero, western physics, mathematics, geometry, and so on would be impossible.
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Bitte_Kein_Lexus
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newkidontheblock
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Re: Cambodia invented Zero - 683 AD
I completely agree. The Romans did not use the Arabic numbering system that western math is based on. They used an abacus system for counting and calculations.Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote:Not really. The Romans built with amazing precision and the Greeks are still amazing for their use of geometry/mathematics. Eratosthenes famously accurately determined the circumference of the earth to give one example of many.
And the Egyptians built their pyramids based on divisions of pi. Primarily because they used a rolling wheel to determine distances. Unfortunately the theoretical knowledge of the earth’s circumference had no practical application until the advent of the sextant and the first accurate ship’s clock, forerunner of the GPS system.
History is always interesting.
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popping in
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Re: Cambodia invented Zero - 683 AD
You provide a lot of interesting info. I disagree on the spread of the 0 though. I think different civilisations would easily have developed this independently. It's not THAT hard an invention, particularly if you're actively thinking of ways to make counting more efficient. I think any human civilisation who had the need to count effectively would have come up with the "Arabic system" before long. Just my view.newkidontheblock wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 7:56 am It’s not just who invented it. It’s who actually spread the knowledge to the rest of the world. Without the Arabic system 1,2,3 etc., combined with zero, western physics, mathematics, geometry, and so on would be impossible.
Also the time period. Lots of discoveries happened that were useless at the time. Antiquity discovered the steam ball, a child’s toy, the Victorians discovered the light cascading down fountains, a parlor trick, etc. Became only useful with the steam engine, and fiber optics.
The Vikings may have discovered America first, or Imperial China. But it was Christopher Columbus who introduced the New World and kicked off the age of discovery and colonization.
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Big Daikon
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Re: Cambodia invented Zero - 683 AD
Interestingly, the Greeks did not understand the laws of probability. That (and modern statistics) came much, much later.Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 10:15 am the Greeks are still amazing for their use of geometry/mathematics.
The history of math is quite interesting (to me, anyway).
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