About 2,500 years ago, Babylonian traders in Mesopotamia impressed two slanted wedges into clay tablets. The shapes represented a placeholder digit, squeezed between others, to distinguish numbers ...

Many mathematical equations can only be solved thanks to a special human invention: the number zero. In many ways, it is a strange concept. It’s a quantity, defined by absence. It also emerged ...

In the grand timeline of human civilization, certain discoveries change the course of history fire, the wheel, electricity, and, surprisingly to some, the number zero. Without zero, there would be no ...

Richard Kenney never intended to be one of those dense, difficult poets. But he readily admits that his last volume, "The Invention of Zero," was so obscure it was "unreadable." "It took years to ...

Many brilliant minds have shaped the world of mathematics, but one name stands out above all: Archimedes of Syracuse. Known for his genius in geometry, physics, and invention, Archimedes made ...

Ruth Morgan receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She was a Lead Author (Working Group 2) of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Last month, ...