The Origins

0 is the Alpha (beginning) and Omega (the highest) as there is no beginning and no end; all is infinite. The ancients proclaimed that the ‘God force’ is a circle whose centre is everywhere and its circumference is nowhere. Zero is the symbol of ‘nothingness’ and denotes freedom from limitations in this material world. Zero is the number of the ‘God’ force and Universal Energies and reinforces, amplifies and magnifies the vibrations of the numbers it appears with. The number zero encompasses the attributes of all other numbers, and brings one closer to the ‘God force’ or ‘Source’.

Zero is one of humanity’s most radical inventions—a symbol that stands for both nothing and everything. Unlike other numbers, zero is a concept, a code, a cosmic placeholder. Its journey begins in the ancient world, emerging independently across continents, each culture layering its own interpretation onto the cipher.

Global Use of Zero

Africa

Ta-Mery / Kemet (Ancient Egypt): The mathematicians of Kemet mastered the idea of absence and cycles but did not formalise zero as a written number. Their symbol “nfr” meant beauty, completeness, and perfection—hints of wholeness and cyclical return, yet never a dedicated glyph for absolute nothingness. The Egyptians measured, counted, and engineered with stunning precision, but the explicit numeral for zero was absent in their hieroglyphic system.

West Asia – Sumer / Mesopotamia (Babylon): By around 400–300 BCE, the Sumerians and Babylonians began using a placeholder to denote an empty position within their cuneiform numerals. This was not a full zero as we know it, but a critical conceptual leap: the recognition of the “space between” in numbers. This placeholder allowed them to write large numbers accurately, planting the seed for zero’s eventual mathematical arrival.

Asia

South Asia – Bharata / Hindustan (Ancient India): India is the true cradle of zero. Ancient texts referenced “śūnya,” the void or emptiness, as early as the Vedic period. By the 5th century CE, Indian mathematicians had transformed this abstract idea into a written symbol—a dot or small circle used within positional notation. In the 7th century, Brahmagupta formalised zero as both a number and an operator in his astronomical treatises, establishing rules for how zero interacts with other numbers—addition, subtraction, and even the impossible challenge of division by zero. This breakthrough changed the world’s mathematics forever.

East Asia – Zhongguo / Huaxia / Shénzhōu (Ancient China): Chinese scholars used blank spaces as placeholders in abacus and rod numeral systems by the 4th century CE. The explicit concept of zero as a number arrived later, influenced by the thriving trade of ideas along the Silk Road and the growing dominance of the Indian positional system.

Americas – Maya (Mesoamerica): The Maya independently discovered zero by 300 CE. Their calendar system relied on a shell-shaped glyph for zero, critical for their complex calculations in astronomy and timekeeping. The Maya’s use of zero is among the earliest concrete examples of zero’s practical mathematical power, running in parallel with the developments in India.

Europe

The Greeks - debated the void philosophically—what it means to have nothing—but never adopted zero as a number. The Romans, locked into their additive numeral system, had no symbol for zero at all. It was only through the genius of Arabic mathematicians, like al-Khwarizmi and al-Kindi, that zero—the “sifr”—spread westward. By the 12th and 13th centuries, zero arrived in Europe, championed by Fibonacci in his Liber Abaci. This changed everything: without zero, there is no decimal system, no algebra, no modern science.

Modern Global Impact

Today, zero is the axis on which the entire digital and scientific world spins. Every calculation in modern computing, every byte of binary code, every algorithm, every financial ledger, and every contemplation of the cosmos depends on zero. In quantum physics, the “zero-point field” underlies all matter and energy. In meditation and spiritual traditions, zero becomes a metaphor for the void—the state before form, pure awareness, the unmanifest.

Agreeable Connotations

Zero, when viewed in its most harmonious sense, stands as the ultimate symbol of infinite possibility and creative origin. It embodies source energy, cosmic wholeness, the amplifier that magnifies all things it joins, and the silent portal through which all existence is born. In this light, zero represents deep stillness, spiritual silence, the latent power at the root of the universe, and the renewal that comes from returning to source. It signifies non-attachment and the pure, unmanifested potential from which all forms emerge—a sacred container for possibility, a calm before the pulse of creation.

Disagreeable Connotations

Conversely, zero’s shadow carries the weight of oblivion, erasure, and existential emptiness. It can represent the abyss of meaninglessness, the risk of total loss or disconnection, and the paralysis that comes from being suspended in pure potential without manifestation. In this guise, zero points to isolation, formlessness, and the haunting possibility of vanishing into nothingness—a cycle of dissolution and annihilation that warns of the dangers of never stepping into form or identity. Zero reminds us that potential, left unexpressed, can dissolve into the void just as surely as it can birth the universe.