Much Ado About Nothing

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Much Ado About Nothing

• The History of Zero and its Importance in Modern
  Mathematics
• Abbie Corwin

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What do you know about zero?
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Before Zero

• Successful number systems existed thousands of
  years before the numeral 0
• Egypt, Babylon, and the rest of the world

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Egypt

• (images http//www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/histo
  ry/HistTopics/Egyptian_numerals.html)
• 3000 BC, working writing system based on figures
  carved into clay, hieroglyphs
• Numbers written top down, largest on top
• Able to add and subtract, common unit fractions
  made by putting above denominator

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Babylon

• (image http//www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/histor
  y/HistTopics/Egyptian_numerals.html)
• 2000 BC, sexagesimal system
• Positional system
• Use context to clear up confusion with numbers
  like 2 and 60

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Rest of the World

• Chinese had a problem based system
• Only China had a decimal place value number
  system
• Information from anywhere else before 100 BC is
  very limited

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Rules of Basic Math

• Important to understand why the math that we
  believe works actually works like it does
• Most of it breaks down into a simple repetition
  of step below

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Addition and Subtraction

• Addition is the process of continuous counting
• 4 2 6 or 4, 5, 6
• Subtraction is counting backwards
• 4 2 2 or 4, 3, 2

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Multiplication and Division

• Multiplication is repeated addition
• 4 2 8 or 4 4 8
• Division is repeated subtraction
• 4 2 2 or 4 2 2 0

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Exponents and Roots

• Exponents are repeated multiplication
• 42 16 or 4 4 16
• Roots are repeated division
• 2v4 2 or (4 2) 2 1

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My Thesis

• Past
• History of zero, from invention to acceptance
• Present
• Presence of zero in modern math, special rules
• Future
• Use of all this information in a high school
  math classroom

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Evaluation Criteria

• Research Component
• Depth, clarity, organization, and presentation
  of information
• Analytical Component
• Presence and depth of mathematical connections
  and relationships
• Creative Component
• Completion and thoroughness of
• completed curriculum

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Task List

• Logical layout of history of zero
• Finite list and formal explanation of zero facts
• Concrete use in high school setting
• Presentation and paper