LONDON: A black dot on a third-century manuscript has been identified by Oxford University as the first recorded use of the mathematical symbol for ‘zero’, 500 years earlier than previously thought. “Scientists from the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries, have used carbon dating to trace the figure’s origins to the famous ancient Indian scroll,” the university said in a statement. The birch bark scroll is known as the Bakhshali manuscript, named after Bakhshali village near Peshawar, where it was found buried in 1881. It has been held at the Bodleian…
Read More1,800-year-old dot is first ‘zero’, say researchers
