Which culture invented zero?

Answer 1

The Arab culture had the number 0 before Europe.

answer 2 The Babylonians at least needed the concept of zero, but did not really develop it other than a 'leave a space' concept.

The Greeks had a marvellous system of geometry and logic, but it was that which led them astray "for why should there be a name for nothing, when it is nothing".

Similar thinking led them into the 'hare and the tortoise' lapses of rigour.

However, the Hindu could not only consider the concept of zero, but the state of 'non-being' was a condition that their religion (and that of the Buddhists) actively sought.

There is a Hindu manuscript from cAD200, the Bakhhali manuscript. Their name for zero was sunya which means blank. First symbolized as dots and later as small circles.

The Arabs translated the sunya into their tongue as sifr which also meant 'empty space. You should see where our word cypher comes from.

The Hindu went on to develop the concept of negative numbers - possibly a frightening concept to the Greeks? Hindu went on to deal with infinity, fractions (as distinct to the ratios of the Greeks), and Irrational Numbers.

China also had counting rods as early as 4th century BC,

The Maya (strictly Mesoamerican) had a base 20 number system and also developed a concept of 'leave a space' but this was in a more limited use - comparable to the Babylonians - than our broad arithmetic of today. In their counting strings, a space means to leave a space.

Much of my info is from The Alphabet Effect by R K Logan.