37Chapter 5The Roots of the Scientific
Revolution
Although the science revolution took place in Renaissance Europe the
roots of this revolution can be said to have also taken place in Ancient
India and the Medieval Islamic world. We turn first to the contribution of
Hindu mathematicians and then examine the contributions of Islamic
science.
Hindu and Buddhist Mathematics, the Invention of Zero
and the Place Number System
Hindu and Buddhist mathematicians invented zero more than 2,000 years
ago. Their discovery led them to positional numbers, simpler arithmetic
calculations, negative numbers, algebra with a symbolic notation, as well
as the notions of infinitesimals, infinity, fractions, and irrational numbers
all of which were essential elements in the breakthroughs of Copernicus,
Kepler, Galileo and Newton.
The historians of mathematics have always been puzzled that the
germinal idea of zero was a discovery of the Hindus and not the Greeks.
The explanation of this fact does not lie in an examination of Greek
mathematics but rather in a comparison of Greek and Hindu philosophy.
Paradoxically, it was the rational and logical thought patterns of the
Greeks that hindered their development of algebra and the invention of
zero (Logan 2004). Let us recall that Parmenides using logic argued that
non-being could not be and that Aristotle also argued that a vacuum
could not be. These philosophical notions I would claim created an
environment that discouraged the conceptualization of zero. Non-being
was a state that Hindus and Buddhists actively sought, on the other hand,
in their attempt to achieve Nirvana, or oneness with the whole cosmos