The ancient Indians represented zero as a circle with a dot inside. In Sanskrit, it was called "soonya". This and the decimal number system fascinated Arab scholars who came to India. Arab mathematician Al-Khowarizmi (790 AD - 850 AD) wrote Hisab-al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabala (Calculation of Integration and Equation) which made Indian numbers popular. "Soonya" became "al-sifr" or "sifr". The impact of this book can be judged by the fact that "al-jabr" became "Algebra" of today. An Italian Leonardo Fibonacci (1170 AD - 1230 AD) took this number system to Europe.

The Arabic "sifr" was called "zephirum" in Latin, and acquired many local names in Europe including "cypher". In the beginning, the merchants used to Roman numbers found the decimal system a new idea, and referred to these numbers as "infidel numbers", as the Arabs were called infidels because they had invaded the holy land of Palestine. However, nowadays this system is called Hindu-Arabic System. This positional system of representing integers revolutionised the mathematical calculations and also helped in Astronomy and accurate navigation. The use of positional system to indicate fractions was introduced around 1579 AD by Francois Viete. The dot for a decimal point came to be used a few years later, but did not become popular until its use by Napier.

Modern computers are based on binary system - which uses only two bits - 0 and 1.

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