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Zero and other inventions

Illustration of a stick figure holding the number zero

© advent/Shutterstock

Zero and other inventions

Zero and other inventions 1

India is an ancient civilisation. Things that were invented there many centuries ago are still in use all over the world. Many of these you probably don’t even think about. They are just there.

Here is a brief description of one Indian invention. Can you guess what it is?

It is used by school pupils.

It can be made of wood or plastic.

You can hold it in your hand.

You use it to measure how long things are.

It’s a ruler.

Bilde 10_Ruler_Dzmitry Shpak_dreamstime_m_34727468_s.jpg
© Dzmitry Shpak/dreamstime


Zero and other inventions 2

Some time in the 7th century an Indian mathematician invented the decimal system – that’s counting in tens. This simplified how you write large numbers. After a while the system spread to Arabic countries and, about 700 years later, to Europe. Another Indian invention made it easier to tell the difference between 26, 206 and 2006. Before the zero was invented, people just left a space, so both 206 and 2006 were written 2 6. Algebra was also invented in India. Have you done any algebra at school? That’s maths which uses letters to represent numbers, for example x + 5 = 7.

India is known for its mathematicians, engineers and doctors. But there are also some everyday things you use which were invented in India. What do you wash your hair with? Shampoo. What do you use to fasten your favourite shirt or cardigan? Buttons.

And there’s one last thing much of the modern world depends on. In fact, you are now reading this because of something invented by an Indian scientist. Narinder Singh Kapany, who lives in the USA, is known as the “Father of Fibre Optics”. Without this there would be no high-speed Internet and life online would be very, very s     l     o     w.

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