Zero in mathematics: 15 fascinating facts you should know about

Zero (symbolically '0') is a special number in mathematics and so, read on to find out some interesting facts about the number.

The invention of zero brought a revolution in the field of mathematics. Several mathematical concepts, researches, methods and theories we have today, but none of these would have been possible without the concept of zero. Here, we have gathered some amazing facts about this extremely important number that you need to know.

1. The number 0 was invented much later than all the other natural numbers. Brahmagupta, a mathematician and Hindu astronomer, invented the concept of zero in the 7th century. Over centuries, several other countries learnt the idea of zero and started using it in mathematics.
2. Brahmagupta gave some rules regarding addition and subtraction with zero, but he couldn't explain anything about division.
3. In English, the word 'zero' was first used in the year 1604.
4. 0 is neither a positive number, nor a negative number. It's a neutral number.
5. Many people have confusion about zero being an even number or an odd number! As zero is an integer multiple of the even number 2, so it belongs to the set of even numbers. And therefore, zero is an even number.
6. A number which can be written as p/q, where both p and q are integer, is called a rational number. As 0 can be expressed as 0/n (where n= any integer number), therefore, 0 is a rational number.
7. 0 and 1 are the only two digits that exist in every positional notation.
8. Multiply any number with zero, the result will always come zero. That means, 0*n = 0 (n being any integer).
9. While dividing zero by any number gives zero as the result, it's undefined when we divide any number by zero.
10. If you divide zero by zero, it gives no answer.

0/0 = no answer.

11. Except from many programming languages, zero is never used to indicate any order, place or rank.
12. While 0 to the power any number gives 0 (0ⁿ =0) and any number to the power 0 gives 1 (n⁰ =1), 0 to the power 0 is always undefined (0⁰= undefined).
13. 0-0 = 0, making it its own additive inverse.
14. The major credit for zero being popular in the whole world today goes to Leonardo de Pisa (best known as Fibonacci). In his book, he introduced the Fibonacci numbers and showed the importance of zero.
15. The Roman Numerals don't represent 0 as a number. This is because the ancient Romans didn't consider zero as a number.

The idea of zero is a extremely interesting. Several mathematicians have been exploring several aspects of it and now, it's considered as the most important digit in the numeric.