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Hello Shakespeare's King Lear warned nothing will come of nothing.

It's a thought that had been around for some time and probably borrowed from the Roman poet

Lucretius, Nille Posecreari de Nilo.

The poet and priest John Dunn also warned from the pulpit, the less anything is the

less we know it.

How invisible, unintelligible a thing is nothing.

And the English monk and historian Willem of

Morsbury called the idea dangerous Saracen magic. They were all talking about

zero, the worrying disturbing number or symbol that had been part of the mathematics in the East for centuries

but was in the Renaissance finally taking hold on Europe.

What was it about Zera that so troubled them?

How was Zero invented and developed? And what role does Zero play in mathematics today?

With me to discuss the history of Zero is Robert Kaplan, co-founder of the Math Circle at

Harvard University and author of The Nothing That Is a Natural History of Zero.

Lisa Jardin, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary University of London, and Ian Stewart,

Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick.

Robert Kaplan, can you tell us how important Zero is?

Crucially important, from its very beginnings

5,000 years ago in Samaria. It allowed us to calculate, to count easily

by positional notation. Instead of those Roman numerals,

...