Zero

Charles Seife's book, costs you almost zero dollars. That is in my wish list. Here I write about the idea and history.

One concept, three cultures.

We can read in Wikipedia about zero.

This is Zero in Maya.

Three cultures:

1. Asia
2. Europe
3. America

I sumarize the first two from what I have read, mainly in Dick Teresi's book: Lost Discoveries.

The third, and more important part of this note, is what I learned from Prof. Domingo Yojcom Rocché .

Europeans of the Renaissance used roman numerals by decree of the Catholic Church, and thus the State. We can read in p. 24 of Teresi's book:

"Meanwhile, in India about a thousand years earlier, mathematicians were doing multiplication and division the "modern" way, as well as algebra and even a crude form of calculus.

Now, imagine yourself again in fifteenth-century Italy. You are, let's say, a bookseller. You need to keep track of sales and inventory. You need to pay your suppliers, total your sales, calculate your overhead, determine your profit or loss. How would you do this? Certainly not with roman numerals; even the simplest arithmetic using roman (or Greek) numerals was beyond all but advanced scholars. Furthermore, there is no roman numeral for zero; in fact, there is no concept of zero, of nothingness, in European math of this era. How do you get your accounts to balance?

Like other merchants, you keep a secret set of books, in the globar, or Gwalior, numerals, the so-called Hindu-Arabic numerals, which date from approximately first- to eigth-century A.D. India. They look something like this: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9. You would keep these books secret because in 1348 the ecclesiastical authorities of the University of Padua prohibited the use of "ciphers" in the price lists of books, ruling that prices must be stated in "plain" letters. A century earlier, a Florentine edict had forbidden bankers to use the "infidel" symbols."

Teresi quotes Lancelot Hogben, Mathematics for the Million (London: Allen & Unwin, 1942), p. 245, as  a source.

Now the Asian contribution you can read from the Wikipedia article on Zero I link above.

Nevertkeless little is known about Maya.

Why is that so?

As Prof. Yojcom told us in private conversation, the recent revolution war in Guatemala, allows them to talk now. They were silenced by the same elites that want to destroy Evo Morales's government in Bolivia, at the same time that  I am writing this. That is why we do not know the Maya, and Inca version of events. They have been, are, and will be tried to keep quiet by Europeans living in America since 1521 that Hernán Cortés took Mexico Tenochtitlán by force.

That is why.

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (December 2007)


After 489 years we do not agree on what happened in Mexico Tenochtitlán. That should tell you something.

I agree with Jared Diamond. In the book: Guns, Germs, and Steel he strongly argues for the biological explanation of the defeat of Mexico.

From the Wikipedia article on The Conquest of Mexico cited above you can read:

"Smallpox decimates the local population 

While Cortés was rebuilding his alliances and garnering more supplies, a smallpox epidemic struck. The disease was brought by a Spanish slave from Narvaez’s forces, who had been abandoned in the capital during the Spanish flight.^[1] The disease broke out in Tenochtitlan in late October; the epidemic lasted sixty days, ending by early December. Many of the residents of Tenochtitlan died from disease, but starvation also devastated the population. Since so many were afflicted, people were unable to care for others, and many starved to death. While the population of Tenochtitlan was recovering, the disease continued to Chalco, a city on the southeast corner of Lake Texcoco that was formerly controlled by the Aztecs but now occupied by the Spanish.^[6] The disease killed an estimated forty percent of the native population in the area within a year. The Aztecs codices give ample depictions of the disease's progression. It was known to them as the huey ahuizotl (great rash). Cuitlahuac contracted the disease and died after ruling for only eighty days. Though the disease drastically decreased the numbers of warriors on both sides, it had more dire consequences for the leadership on the side of the Aztecs, as they were much harder hit by the smallpox than the Spanish leadership."

If there are any Europeans out there, still believing that Amerindians can be easily domesticated, I tell you. Now all surviving Amerindians are immune to European diseases, do not try this again. Leave Bolivia if all you think is in ripping off the land as Europeans have done for almost five hundred years in this Continent.

Today, President Juan Evo Morales Ayma is in Mexico Tenochtitlan as the President of the Inca from Bolivia. Yesterday he went to present his respects to the only Amerindian who was president of these lands after the defeat of Cuauhtemoc in Tenochtitlan. He  was the great man: Benito Pablo Juárez García.

I expect these new political leaders of our Continent, to finally  allow the ancient knowledge of Amerindians to be known all over the world.

The last word on Zero has not been said.

"240,000 Aztecs are estimated to have died during the siege, which lasted eighty days. "

Taken from Fall of Tenochtitlan (Wikipedia)

We do not forget. Time has come to tell our side of the story.