Depth 1 · 34 s
The number for nothing
Take the apples off a plate one by one - three, two, one, and then zero. Zero is the number for nothing; adding or taking it away changes nothing, and it was first treated as a number in India.
About this video
Zero is the number of things there are when nothing is there. This short animation starts with three apples on a plate and takes them away one at a time: three, two, one. When the plate is empty, the count doesn't stop. It reaches a number too: zero.
Zero has its own rules. Adding zero to a number changes nothing, so 5 + 0 = 5, and taking zero away changes nothing either, so 5 - 0 = 5. And any number take away itself leaves zero: 5 - 5 = 0. These rules look obvious now, but for a long time people didn't think of nothing as a number at all. The first person known to write down rules for zero as a number was the mathematician Brahmagupta, in India, in the year 628. Zero also does a second job in our numerals: it holds an empty place open, as in 305. This video goes with the Zero, the Number for Nothing lesson of Numbers Level 1 on Knaph.
This video shows depth 1 of Zero.
Learn ZeroTranscript
- 0:00How many apples are on an empty plate?
- 0:04Take them away, one at a time. Three, two, one.
- 0:10Zero. The number for nothing.
- 0:14Add zero, or take zero away, and nothing changes.
- 0:20A number take away itself is zero.
- 0:25In 628, Brahmagupta in India wrote the first rules for zero.
- 0:30Nothing, counted.