Talk:0

Reference

"By the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, the Babylonian mathematics had a sophisticated sexagesimal positional numeral system. The lack of a positional value (or zero) was indicated by a space between sexagesimal numerals. In a tablet unearthed at Kish (dating to as early as 700 BC), the scribe Bêl-bân-aplu used three hooks as a placeholder in the same Babylonian system." [16]

Reference

Kaplan, Robert. (2000). The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero. Oxford: Oxford University Press.      →     P.12

"꤀" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect ꤀ and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 July 4#꤀ until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. 1234qwer1234qwer4 22:59, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 October 2022

In the phone number example, please change 555-0123 to 567-0123 and the pronunciation to "five six seven oh one two three". (Or, change the first three digits to any other sequence where the same number doesn't repeat consecutively, e.g. 565 would work.) Here in Australia, consecutive-same digits are customarily pronounced "double" or "triple", so this would be "triple five oh one two three". This section ought to use a number whose pronunciation (aside from "oh") will be the same worldwide. 175.39.61.121 (talk) 19:49, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: 555 is a reserved prefix for example numbers in the US and Canada; see 555 (telephone number). 3mi1y (talk) 02:53, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Any trio of digits will be in real use somewhere. One option is to substitute 496, which serves as a fictitious prefix in larger UK cities. Certes (talk) 10:28, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Exactly. This is a worldwide encyclopedia, not a North American encyclopedia. User:Certes, would you mind changing 555 to 496? 175.39.61.121 (talk) 21:04, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, but I'll wait and see if there's consensus for that change. Certes (talk) 22:08, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

I have no country preference, only a preference that it not be changed to a valid-looking number, lest people who think they're being clever and funny start calling it. (It occurs to me that 867-5309 actually may be near-optimal: it contains a zero, has no repeating digits, and everyone who would be bothered by it has already changed their number. Also, there's a famous recording of someone saying it repeatedly that we can use as a source.)

It sounds like 555-01xx has that problem for other countries, though, so I'm in favor of changing it. It did not occur to me at the time that a NANP-formatted number may also be a valid number elsewhere.

Telephone_numbering_plan#Area_code contains 020 7946 0321; Google results for that include one page listing it as a fake number and a lot of pages quoting Wikipedia. I'm mildly skeptical because it looks a lot like someone typo'd the real fictitious prefix.

Alternatively, we could sidestep this whole thing entirely by referring to only part of a phone number: "the area code 020 would be pronounced "oh two oh"". (Assuming that's the case in the UK; I've never been there.) 3mi1y (talk) 03:41, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

867-5309 is an excellent idea! The song clearly says "oh".Spitzak (talk) 16:36, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

 Done with an area code, since this has been sitting here for a while unanswered. 3mi1y (talk) 21:11, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Possible misleading information

This part: This permits an array element's location to be calculated by adding the index directly to address of the array, whereas 1-based languages precalculate the array's base address to be the position one element before the first.[citation needed]

It's only true if the size in memory of each array element is the same as the 1 "byte". And even this is not guaranteed since depends on the programming language definitions, OS and even processor instructions.

Just a quick example: An integer array will, in most programming languages, allocate 4 bytes for each array element.

Please correct me if I am mistaken! I just found that part very odd.

Sorry for the trouble. 2804:1AC:5819:344:9DB3:E76F:8008:5935 (talk) 05:10, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I removed that sentence for being off-topic. But, basically, if you count from 1, then an additional subtraction step is necessary, which is elided if you count from 0. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:45, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Reordering of hsitory section

I don't see any legitimate reason to reorder the history section, aside from an attempt to move India higher on the page. I submit that this should be reverted. Thoughts? MrOllie (talk) 18:30, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

The Indian development came later than China and Classical Antiquity both chronologically and alphabetically. The changed order looks a bit like 111AAA Plumbing grabbing first place in the Yellow Pages. Revert. Certes (talk) 19:17, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Most readers would know the region of India, regardless of era, as India. At the very least, the article must be restored to the status quo, until there is any consensus to make the change. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:23, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

0 was on my watchlist, and I agree that it must be restored to the status quo. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 07:39, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

So long as we recount the history of 0 by region (which may be unavoidable but does give the impression that developments in China, India, south-west Asia and Egypt were independent and there was no communication or trade between those regions), there'll be overlap in periods, but broadly speaking we should order the subsections chronologically according to the most significant periods in each, and describing an influential development (eg Babylonian) before the effect of that influence (eg Greek). Alphabetical ordering would be capricious and unhelpful.

As for referring to India as "Bharata (India)", this encyclopedia normally refers to "India" and "Indian", for example in articles linked in this article's India subsection – Pingala, Śūnyatā, Lokavibhaga, Jain, Aryabhatiya and more – and in the text of this article "The concept of zero as a written digit in the decimal place value notation was developed in India." We would fail to serve our readers around the world if we stopped doing so, and here might even be accused of deliberately obscuring the Indian development of 0. Using an ancient name to raise India up an alphabetical list is as absurd as relocating Babylon to Egypt. NebY (talk) 20:31, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: As the administrator who protected this article, could you please instate the talk page consensus? Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:11, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Is zero a Number?

nope its a symbol Owen02212011 (talk) 16:25, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

It was something the Egyptians created to mean nothing in the sort Owen02212011 (talk) 16:27, 7 March 2023 (UTC)