Comment by constantcrying | Hacker News Reader

Comment by constantcrying | Hacker News Reader

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I wanted to give a seriously reply, but clearly there is no point.

I still don't get why you and the other guy think pointing out that "Mesopotamians did it first" is relevant. Even if they did and even if the Greeks were extremely influenced by them, their concept of a geometrical zero was still radically different to the Mesopotamians notion, so it is totally irrelevant who was first. The only counter argument could be that they had the same notion, which the Greeks adopted from the Mesopotamians as a complete package.

I don't think this is really complicated. If their understanding was radically different, then the concept couldn't have just "moved over", so disprove my thesis he discussion on "who was first", is obviously irrelevant.

> With the elaborations you've made since the rest of this thread might not have happened.

Well, the genuine curiosity and willingness to discuss the subject embodied in a single sentence dismissing my post because of an obviously true statement made me very glad to elaborate and discuss further.

I'm going to step back to a meta level and make a couple points:

- Several times in the context of this discussion you've made negative assumptions about someone or their motives replying to you (e.g. "I wanted to give a seriously reply, but clearly there is no point" and "What a stunning revelation, genuinely brilliant insight from you"); I don't think this fosters good discussion (and I also don't think it's particularly good for mental health)

- You seem particularly aggrieved by someone not automatically assuming you know something. Yes, we all understand now that you know the Mesopotamians predated the Greeks with regard to the mathematical notions we're discussing here. But you know what? There's nothing wrong with NOT knowing. And some people reading the discussion might not have known.

Now back to the main topic at hand.

> Even if they did and even if the Greeks were extremely influenced by them, their concept of a geometrical zero was still radically different to the Mesopotamians notion, so it is totally irrelevant who was first

Now I finally feel as though I understand the main thrust of your argument. Let me restate your hypothesis to see if I've got it: even though the Babylonians had the concept of zero, it was sufficiently lacking compared to the Greek concept as to be incomparable; the Greeks fundamentally independently invented the concept of a zero more mathematically powerful than the Babylonians rather than took the existing Babylonian concept of nought and developed it further. Is that right?

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