India, Sept. 3 -- By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik - Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist

Ask any Indian schoolchild who invented zero and the answer will usually be: India did. This is one of the most common beliefs taught in schools and repeated in public discussions. The pride behind this idea is understandable.

Zero is one of the greatest ideas in the history of mathematics. Without it, modern science, computers, engineering and finance would not exist. India certainly made an important contribution to the story of zero. However, the real history is more complex than the simple claim that one civilisation invented it all.

To understand this history, we need to separate three different ideas: decimal counting, place-value notation and ...