"Arabic" (really Indian) Numbers and the Arab World

I just finished reading a book by Dick Teresi, “Lost Discoveries” which deals with scientific discoveries made outside the world of Western Europe – and well before any Europeans stumbled to them. Many, if not most of the great discoveries from the Renaissance through the 18th century had in fact been known long before by other cultures.

Three of the most interesting are: codification of the concept of zero in mathematics; the fact that the earth is round, and questions of time (the length of the year).

The concept of zero was codified in India about the 3rd Centruy BC (you can’t really say “discovered” about mathematics, since the underlying facts were always there). It was transmitted via Arab world around 800 AD. “Arabic” numbers in fact originate in India. Zero was strenuously resisted by Christian world - a future pope, then a priest, was accused of having intercourse with evil spirits for using a zero in calculation. And of course it is easy to poke fun at the fact that even today there is no “year 0" in the Christian calendar. The Mayans (ca. 300 AD), Babylonians (ca 700 BC) and Chinese (at least by about 1000 AD) all also had the concept of zero to one degree or another.

The Indians also knew that the world was round and that it revolved around the sun, as did various other people, and dated the age of the world at 4.3 billion years - very close to current estimate of 4.6 billion years. In fact, documents attesting to a heliocentric view of the universe may well have influenced Copernicus and Galileo.

It is well-known that the Mayan long calendar is more accurate than our current calendar. What is perhaps less known is that a calendar conceived by Omar Khayyam (a very good mathematician and a very bad poet) in the 11th century was similarly more accurate.

The bottom line is that many critical scientific concepts were conceptualized outside of Western Europe and well prior to the Greeks. They were transmitted from (in many cases) India to the Arab world, which often improved on them, then through Spain to Europe. The fact that these concepts may have been worked out in order to resolve practical and/or religious problems (how do you know the exact direction that points to Mecca?) is irrelevant.

Like any work of scientific popularizing, Teresi’s book is uneven and some of the details or examples may be wrong. But the simple weight of the evidence, taken as a whole, is overwhelming. Definitely a must read.