Source citation ledger

Mathematics in India

Kim Plofker

book · 2009

Kim Plofker, Mathematics in India.

These are separate Atlas meetings that cite this source. Citation is not proof.

Late antiquity

Zero is historically related to Cipher.
English cipher once named zero, from Arabic ṣifr, itself in conversation with Sanskrit śūnya. Later “cipher” as secret writing is another job of the word.
from Kim Plofker · Mathematics in India, 2009
historically related to · sourced · documented
Cipher is derived from Zero.
The European word for zero is historically a borrowing-path, not an occult void. Secret writing is a later sense.
from Kim Plofker · Mathematics in India, 2009
derived from · sourced · documented

Vedic tradition

Zero is associated with Knowledge.
Indian mathematics treats śūnya as a numeral and a place in positional notation. That is a history of calculation, not a Theosophical emptiness.
from Kim Plofker · Mathematics in India, 2009
associated with · sourced · documented
Zero is associated with Writing.
A numeral is a written mark. Plofker’s history is about Indian mathematics, not an occult alphabet of the void.
from Kim Plofker · Mathematics in India, 2009
associated with · sourced · documented

Eighteenth-century Europe

Cipher is historically related to Writing.
The later English sense of cipher as secret writing is a word’s career, not zero’s mathematical job.
from Kim Plofker · Mathematics in India, 2009
historically related to · interpretive · documented