From 0 to 9 - The mysterious origins of our numbers

Why do people in Europe refer to them as "Arabic numerals" when they were invented in India? How could ten tiny symbols conquer the world? And how did zero change the course of history?

The Western world calls them "Arabic numerals," while in the Arab world, today's European notation is thought of as being Western. What is "Arabic" about the symbols that traveled from India to Europe and on to the rest of the world?

Following the trail of our numbers leads us to Baghdad. There, in the eighth century, a scholar named al-Khwarizmi — Latinized as "Algorismi," later to be found in the word "algorithm" — helped spread Indian numerals. He would become known as the father of modern algebra. The "Arabic" numerals commonly used in Europe today derive from another variant, known as "Ghubar" — Arabic for "dust." That had emerged from the so-called "dust tables" used by Maghrebi merchants around the Mediterranean.

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