The History of 0

Abstract

This paper juxtaposes “histories” of zero in mathematics and literature. Without zero's introduction into Europe in the Renaissance, the modern world of calculus, set theory, international finance, “smart bombs” and digital globalization would have been impossible. The origin of zero, however, fades off into an uncertain past. Was zero invented or discovered by Babylonians, or Chaldeans, or Indians, or Greeks, or Spanish Arabs, or Mayans, or by all of these at different times and places? Scholars disagree. They agree, however, that zero, which is both a number and not a number, causes intractable problems for logic, for mathematics, and for set theory. Zero has been present in modernist literature too, sometimes as a theme, as in Borges or Svevo; sometimes, as in Shakespeare, Joyce, James, and George Eliot, in a way more integral to rhetorical form: that is, as a figure for the allegorical features of literary language.