12/26/2025 at 7:39:22 PM
> Arrange the given block, if necessary, so that no ciphers [zeros] occur in its interior.I forgot that cipher used to have a different meaning: zero, via Arabic. In some languages it means digit.
by esafak
12/27/2025 at 5:27:42 AM
Fun fact: zero and numerals were not invented by the Arabs. The Arabs learnt the concept & use of mathematical zero, numerals, decimal system, mathematical calculations, etc. from the ancient Hindus/Indians. And from the Arabs, the Europeans learnt it.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu-Arabic_numeral_system
Persian scholar Al Khwarizmi translated and used the Hindu/Indian numerals (including concept of mathematical zero) and "Sulba Sutras" (Hindu/Indian methods of mathematical problem solving) into the text Al-Jabr, which the Europeans translated as "Algebra" (yup, that branch of mathematics that all schoolkids worldwide learn from kindergarten).
by vee-kay
12/27/2025 at 6:35:13 AM
The word used to mean "empty" (and not algebraic zero) in both Arabic and Sanskrit.https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/MathEd/index.php/2022/08/25/the...
by gsf_emergency_6
12/27/2025 at 2:20:54 PM
Origin trivia: Originating from the Sanskrit word for zero शून्य (śuṇya), via the Arabic word صفر (ṣifr), the word "cipher" spread to Europe as part of the Arabic numeral system during the Middle Ages.https://www.etymonline.com/word/cipher
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipher#Etymology
Fun fact: The Sanskrit word for mathematical zero and emptiness/voidness is the same: Shunya (शून्य). In fact, mathematicians are of the opinion that ancient Indians were among the first to understand the concept of mathematical zero because they understood the meaning of empty/void (Shunyata). Dhyana (meditation by focusing on voidness/stillness, away from random intrusive thoughts) is an aspect of Yoga (world's oldest active fitness discipline).
Another fun fact: The world's oldest recorded cipher (as an example of cryptography/ encryption) is the ancient Indian epic Ramayana by Maharshi Valmiki. It has 24000 verses (Sanskrit shlokas), and the first syllable (akshara) of each 1000th verse/shloka forms a series of 24 syllables that form the sacred Sri Gayatri Mantra.
Proofs of oldest records mathematical zero being of Indian origin, are available..
https://thebetterindia.com/270912/chaturbhuj-temple-in-gwali...
World's oldest known evidence of Mathematical Zero and numerals - ancient inscription on wall of Chaturbhuj temple in Gwalior, India.
https://www.glam.ox.ac.uk/article/carbon-dating-finds-bakhsh...
Bakhshali manuscript (stored in Oxford) from ancient India/Bharat - is the world's oldest text having Mathematical Zero and equations.
by vee-kay
12/28/2025 at 3:59:00 PM
may be all for naught, but here's "the last word in combinators": https://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/pgh/amen.htmlby aebtebeten
12/29/2025 at 3:48:25 AM
>if one is a little charitableby gsf_emergency_6
12/27/2025 at 2:35:01 PM
Yeah I believe modern trigonometry and the terms sine and cos also trace their origins to Sanskrit through Arabic. It's a shame that ancient/medieval India contributed so much to science and math but hasn't been able to innovate in centuries past :(by lappet
12/27/2025 at 5:50:49 PM
The word "Trigonometry" itself is of Sanskrit origin: Tri (three) + kona (corner/angle) + niti (measure). The word "meter" or "metre" is from Sanskrit "Miti" (मिती) (meaning: measure/measurement). The decimal system of weights and counting we all know so well is of Indian origin too.India was enslaved and exploited for centuries. By the people who stole its ideas and claimed them as their own.
But greatness can only be suppressed for a while, sooner or later, it will show itself.
The world will heal from its wounds, and the truths shall surface again.
India is #5 world economy now, by the way, and will become #3 before the end of this decade. Not bad for a nation that was still a slave just a few decades ago.
Did you know.. Ancient India (subcontinent) was world #1 economy for thousands of years? Guess who made it poor?
by vee-kay
12/28/2025 at 3:11:37 PM
I mean i would never dispute that India was enslaved, but I think characterizing it as they were enslaved and all there ideas were stolen is a stretch. If they were so innovative and advanced how were they enslaved? Western institutions were a major advancement, things like the caste system held back India and did not come from the west. Those systems were certainty perpetuated by the west but also be Indian leadership as well the same way slavery held the US back but still was spurred on by southern leadership.Adopting western institutions is a large reason Japan become the dominant Asian force leading up to ww2.
I think your probably correct they will become the 3rd largest economy but they also have the second largest economy that makes a huge difference. What makes Americas economy insane is they have been about 25-50% of world GDP for the last 100 years despite being less than 5% of the population. In terms of an efficient economy they are a large way to go still but I think they will become very wealth because I agree the country is full of smart people
by xphos
12/28/2025 at 6:39:04 PM
Q.> I mean i would never dispute that India was enslaved, but I think characterizing it as they were enslaved and all there ideas were stolen is a stretch. If they were so innovative and advanced how were they enslaved?A.: It's because the ancient Indians focused mostly on scientific and cultural progress, while their enemies focused on warfare and destruction.
That's why ancient India built and shared the world's first universities, but the Turkish/Arabic invaders (led by Khilji) from the desert raided, destroyed and looted those priceless vast knowledge repositories.
It is always easier to destroy, it is much harder to build. It is easier to shoot a gun to kill, it is harder to build a library or a home.
Ancient Indians shared so much information to the world, but instead of thanks, the world took so much. Because it is easier to hate when you are jealous of someone's achievements and prosperity (ancient India was world's #1 economy for thousands of years, and had the most fertile lands and biggest rivers).
Q.>What makes Americas economy insane is they have been about 25-50% of world GDP for the last 100 years despite being less than 5% of the population.
A.>The super economies of America, Europe and UK were not built upon their own merits, it was all done by invading, looting and enslaving half the world, especially India, Asia and Africa. Read up on colonial history first.
It is easy to build a skyscraper or a beige in USA or UK or Europe, if you have tons of money that was looted by selling the tons of food & goods stolen from the mouths & hands of millions of Indians that starved and died on the streets of the most fertile land in the world, due to artificial famines deliberately caused by evil governance during colonial enslavement.
Churchill killed more Hindus, than Hitler killed Jews.
The colonial powers have blood on their hands.
Search Google Images for "Great Bengal Famines", "Great Madras Famines", "Great Decdan Famines". You will not get sleep after seeing those horrific images from history that has been suppressed at most schools of the world.
And before you argue about smartness, you should first find out why Wikipedia has suppressed that fact that Arabs never invented any numerals or decimal system or algebra or trigonometry or calculus -- it was all copied and translated from the ancient Indians. But Wikipedia doesn't credit the numerals to be of Indian/Hindu origin and invention.
Once you understand why and how even in modern era, the powers that be, are still suppressing India because they are afraid of India rising to be great again, then all your arguments will fall by the wayside.
by vee-kay
12/27/2025 at 5:33:06 PM
Start with love of the domain and a culture of respect working in it, then move to a love of the status and respect, then a focus on those instead of the domain…by wwweston
12/27/2025 at 8:35:53 PM
And the English word 'algorithm' comes from Al Khwarizmi's name[1].1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Khwarizmi#:~:text=His%20nam...
by blacksmith_tb
12/28/2025 at 1:26:18 PM
Ah, but you need to dig deeper, my friend."Algorithm" is derived from Al-Khwarizmi, but only because he translated the ancient Indian/Hindu "Sulba Sutras" texts into Persian, especially in his "Al Jabr" text.
"Sulba Sutra" literally means "method of problem solving". So the Sukna Sutras were all basically Algorithms - different ways to solve mathematical and scientific problems.
In fact, Al Khwarizmi himself borrowed the title of the original Indian/Hindu texts for his translations and he even acknowledged their Indian/Hindu origin. That's why the meaning of the full title of the Al Jabr book is "The Concise Book of Calculation by Restoration and Balancing" (because that's how algebraic equations are understood and solved).
This Al Jabr book (based on Hindu methods of problem solving and algebraic equations) got translated and understood by British and Europeans, so they simply named this new (new to them) branch of Mathematics as Algebra (derived from "Al Jabr").
SOURCE: the British scholar "Robert of Chester" who translated the Al Jabr book to Latin (during 1876-2956, published in 1915, under book title "Algebra of al-Khowarizmi") documented that the ancient Indians knew the algebraic equations BEFORE Al Khwarizmi. Not only that, Robert also confirmed the ancient Indians knew and used the Pythagorean triangle theorem before the time of Pythagoras.
You can check and read these evidences for yourself please. Sources are linked below.
https://web.archive.org/web/20181118154937/http://library.al...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_of_Chester
https://archive.org/details/robertofchesters00khuw
Trivia: in 1974, IBM released an advertisement, in which it gave the credit of Algebra to most ancient Indian mathematicians. In the advertisement, IBM had explained 'How India gave the world the logic of indeterminate equations' by naming three prominent historic mathematicians: Aryabhata, Bhaskara and Brahmagupta, who developed the concept of Algebra and gave meaning to something (Zero) which was termed to be meaningless before.
The IBm ad proclaimed: "History owes a debt to three Indian mathematicians of 1500 years ago who developed Algebra to give meaning to the meaningless. Bhaskara, who originated the radical signs. Brahmagupta, who created the symbols. Aryabhata, who worked out the first equations. A search that continues today in new directions with newer tools, among them, a machine that helps man in more ways than any other inventions in history: the computer. We are proud that IBM introduced the manufacturing of computers and other data processing equipment in India, which are helping the nation meet the challenge of building a new tomorrow," reads the IBM advertisement.
IBM's advertisement also features an excerpt 'The Poetry of Algebra' from the book Indian Wisdom by Sir Monier Monier-Williams.
* Among the several contributions made by Aryabhata, he discovered the nine planets and found out the correct number of days in a year i.e. 365. * Brahmagupta made one of the most significant contributions to mathematics when he introduced zero(0), which once stood for “nothing”. * Bhāskara declared that any number divided by zero is infinity and that the sum of any number and infinity is also infinity. * 2000 years before Fibinacci, the Indian scholar Pingala discovered and documented by 200 BC the series we today call as Fibonacci series. Pingala wrote the Chandahśāstra, a treatise on prosody — poetic meter. To study Sanskrit meters, he analyzed long and short syllables, generating combinations using what we would now call binary patterns and recursive enumeration. And in doing so, he uncovered (and documented) the interesting series we today call as Fibonacci series.
by vee-kay
12/26/2025 at 8:20:22 PM
lol I never made that connection — in Turkish, zero is sıfır, which does sound a lot like cipher. Also, password is şifre, which again sounds similar. Looking online, apparently the path is sifr (Arabic, meaning zero) -> cifre (French, first meaning zero, then any numeral, then coded message) -> şifre (Turkish, code/cipher)by pinkmuffinere
12/26/2025 at 9:20:36 PM
Nice! Imagine the second meaning going back to Arabic and now it's a full loop! It can even override the original meaning given enough time and popularity (not especially for "zero", but possibly for another full-loop word).by celaleddin
12/27/2025 at 5:12:04 AM
0 is a full loop!by lupire
12/26/2025 at 10:57:51 PM
The Turkish password word may be the same used for signature? I suspect so, because in Greek we have the Greek word for signature but also a Turkish loan word τζίφρα (djifra).by cgio
12/26/2025 at 11:58:11 PM
imza is signature while şifre is password. I imagine the conflation occurred because signatures are used like passwords for authentication...by esafak
12/27/2025 at 12:12:29 AM
Likewise, the monogram of the sitting english monarch (as seen on postboxes and so forth) is the "Royal Cypher".by NextHendrix
12/26/2025 at 11:43:18 PM
Hmm i don’t think that one is related in Turkish — i only know of “imza” as signature, but there could also be other variants.by pinkmuffinere
12/27/2025 at 8:59:35 AM
In Romanian:- cifru -> cipher
- cifră -> digit
by elbear
12/27/2025 at 12:19:34 PM
In Spanish:- cifrar -> to encipher
- cifra -> digit
by cryptonector
12/28/2025 at 12:27:40 PM
I wasn't sure how encipher is in Romanian (it's not common), it's "a cifra". The infinitive in Romanian puts "a" in front of the verb, so it's very close to Spanish.by elbear
12/26/2025 at 8:34:58 PM
[flagged]by ls-a
12/26/2025 at 9:36:23 PM
> All world languages are a deviation from ArabicSpouse of a linguist here. That is absolutely not true. To summarize a LOT, there are multiple languages that share common roots, which linguists classify into language "families". If you go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_families#Spok... and sort the list by number of current speakers (which adds up to far more than the population of the world because so many people speak two or more languages), you'll find the top five language families are Indo-European (which includes most European languages, including English), Sino-Tibetan (which includes Chinese), Atlantic-Congo (which includes Bantu and many other languages spoken in Africa, most of which you probably won't have heard of unless you're a linguist or you live in Africa), Afroasiatic (which includes Arabic), and Austronesian (which includes Tagalog, which you might know by the name Filipino).
It might be possible to claim that the Afroasiatic languages are all derived from Arabic, but the only influence that the Arabic language has had on Indo-European languages such as English is via loanwords (like algebra, for example). This does not make English a derivative of Arabic any more than Japanese (which has borrowed several English words such as カメラ, "kamera", from camera) is a derivative of English. Borrowing a word, or even a few dozen words, from another language does not make it a derivative. English, while it gleefully borrows loanwords from everywhere, is derived from French and German (or, to be more accurate, from Anglo-Norman and Proto-Germanic).
by rmunn
12/26/2025 at 9:50:31 PM
Can I also add that "Arabic numbers" - the numbers we use today, are actually of Indian origin, the Arabs translated the Indian logic/math texts into Arabic, and Western society used the Arabic translations (and additions like those of "Algorithm")https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_s...
by awesome_dude
12/26/2025 at 10:18:00 PM
I have it on consumer-grade authority that the Indians got them in turn from the Shang dynasty, decimal since ca.1200BCE. Thus proving conclusively that numeral systems naturally travel deasil. Ne'er let thine diʒits, goe widdershins.by inopinatus
12/26/2025 at 10:06:24 PM
Also as long as we are going down the terminology nerd rabbit hole: it's Arabic numerals, not numbers. Numbers refers to the abstract concept, numerals refers to the method one uses to write them down.by bigstrat2003
12/26/2025 at 10:09:12 PM
Yeah - I quoted that to show that it was normal usage rather than technical correctness - I also did the same for the name that I didn't have the correct spelling for as I wrote the comment - not sure if I should update it (with your input) or to leave it and let people work down the threadby awesome_dude
12/26/2025 at 10:32:40 PM
it's a cardinal ruleby inopinatus
12/26/2025 at 10:02:36 PM
[flagged]by ls-a
12/26/2025 at 10:16:34 PM
for fellow non-linguists, that was Ignorantese for "trust me, bro"by 867-5309
12/28/2025 at 7:28:13 PM
It's still better than believing we were apes who didn't know how to speak then we invented languages all the way to Chinese. One of us has to be ignorant that's for sure.by ls-a
12/26/2025 at 8:40:15 PM
This doesn’t sound right. What about Chinese?by drivebyhooting
12/26/2025 at 10:23:04 PM
Basque and Pirahā are the good ones.by astrange
12/26/2025 at 10:17:38 PM
i'm quite sure the person was jokingby jjtheblunt
12/27/2025 at 4:16:58 AM
In Tamil, it still means a zero. It's usually pronounced like 'cyber' though, because Tamil doesn't have the 'f'/'ph' sound natively.by sundarurfriend
12/27/2025 at 4:34:31 AM
When someone says "it still means zero" about Tamil when responding to comments about Arabic, two languages which have no shared root and little similarity, what does that mean?I think it means HN is full of misleading ideas.
by aiuu
12/27/2025 at 5:10:13 AM
Isn’t the implication that cipher is a loanword? So language relatedness is irrelevant?We use “arabic” numerals around the world. So use of an Arabic loan word is unsurprising.
by Isamu
12/27/2025 at 5:35:16 PM
Cipher and "Arabic" numerals are not just loan words, they are loan concepts - from India. They originated from ancient India, because the Arabs adopted and translated those ideas and texts from the original texts written by ancient Indians/Hindus.Fact - Origin of Numerals and Mathematical Zero: Mathematical zero and numerals were not discovered/invented by the Arabs. There is no such thing as "Arabic" numerals because the Arabs did NOT invent numerals or cipher (to represent emptiness and/or mathematical zero).
The Arabs learnt the concept & use of mathematical zero, numerals, decimal system, complex mathematical calculations (including the subjects we call today as Algebra, Calculus, Trignometry), etc. from the ancient Hindus/Indians. And from the Arabs, the Europeans learnt it all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu-Arabic_numeral_system
Persian scholar Al Khwarizmi translated and used the Hindu/Indian numerals (including concept of mathematical zero) and "Sulba Sutras" (Hindu/Indian methods of mathematical problem solving) into the text Al-Jabr, which the Europeans translated as "Algebra" (yup, that branch of mathematics that all schoolkids worldwide learn from kindergarten).
Origin trivia: Originating from the Sanskrit word for zero शून्य (śuṇya), via the Arabic word صفر (ṣifr), the word "cipher" spread to Europe as part of the Arabic numeral system during the Middle Ages. https://www.etymonline.com/word/cipher
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipher#Etymology
Fun fact: The Sanskrit word for mathematical zero and emptiness/voidness is the same: Shunya (शून्य). In fact, mathematicians are of the opinion that ancient Indians were among the first to understand the concept of mathematical zero because they understood the meaning of empty/void (Shunyata). Dhyana (meditation by focusing on voidness/stillness, away from random intrusive thoughts) is an aspect of Yoga (world's oldest active fitness discipline).
Another fun fact: The world's oldest recorded cipher (as an example of cryptography/ encryption) is the ancient Indian epic Ramayana by Maharshi Valmiki. It has 24000 verses (Sanskrit shlokas), and the first syllable (akshara) of each 1000th verse/shloka forms a series of 24 syllables that form the sacred Sri Gayatri Mantra.
Proofs of oldest records mathematical zero being of Indian origin, are available..
https://thebetterindia.com/270912/chaturbhuj-temple-in-gwali...
World's oldest known evidence of Mathematical Zero and numerals - ancient inscription on wall of Chaturbhuj temple in Gwalior, India.
https://www.glam.ox.ac.uk/article/carbon-dating-finds-bakhsh...
Bakhshali manuscript (stored in Oxford) from ancient India/Bharat - is the world's oldest text having Mathematical Zero and equations.
World should know the vital mathematical concepts & representations of numerals, decimal system, binary system, algebra, calculus, trigonometry, etc. we know and use today are originated from Indian/Hindu texts and scholars.
Both Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz claimed to be The Father of Calculus, but reality is that they likely learnt it from maths-savvy Jesuit missionaries who themselves simply carried the knowledge of Calculus to Europe from its source: The Kerala School of Mathematics from Malabar, India.
https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/indians-predated-new...
Wikipedia used to mention that the "Arabic" numerals are originated from "Hindu" numerals, but I see that origin has been removed from Wikipedia. It is sad when historical truths are hidden from the world, and mistruths are propagated instead.
By the way, Tamil and Sanskrit are the oldest extant (active) languages in the world.
by vee-kay
12/28/2025 at 12:23:11 AM
While the use of zero and of the positional writing system for numbers have become widespread in Europe after taking them from the Arabs, which had previously taken them from India, these were already known in the Ancient World, both in Ancient Greece and even earlier in Assyria and Babylonia.However, in the Ancient World the use of zero and positional numbers was restricted to some special applications, e.g. in astronomical tables, and it was unknown for most of the people.
The most novel feature of the Indian system was the application of the positional principle to decimal numbers, instead of sexagesimal numbers, and not the use of zero, which did not differ much from how it was used earlier.
by adrian_b
12/28/2025 at 5:01:29 AM
The most novel feature of the Indian numerals is the use of the rounded zero symbol for the mathematical zero, so we all know it so well.The Indian numerals also covered all the basic numeral digits and fit perfectly into the decimal system (which was also invented by the ancient Indians - they primarily used it for measuring weights, especially for currency/trade). The word meter/metre (from Sanskrit "miti") is also of Indian origin. The mathematical zero also fits in perfectly with binary system, also an ancient Indian invention.
The ancient Babylonians did use a dot/period as symbol of zero, but there is no information on whether they also associated zero with voidness/emptiness which the ancient Indians certainly did.
It can be argued that the ancient Babylonians and Indians independently discovered the concept of mathematical zero, and rest of the world learnt such basic concepts from them gradually, Interestingly, while even modern science+mathematics only uses big numbers to a certain extent, the ancient Indian Jain's & Hindus were doing computations of up to 10^32! Hindu cosmology even calculates time up to 10^15, and knows about multiverse, whereas modern science calculates Time only upto billions of years (10^9) and only recently started acknowledging the possibility of multiverse (as it is only explanation of what existed before the Big Bang), I i.e. Time is cyclical, and universes are birthed (Big Bang), grow (expand), decay (collapse) and shrink back to the Infinitesimal Dot again).
So it is a shame that ancient India's contributions to mathematics and other fields (e.g., geography, surgeries, medical tools, metallurgy, etc.) are unknown and ignored by most of the world, and the credits for such knowledge were stolen.
Did you know?.. India built and managed the world's first universities, in Takshashila and Nalanda, which has lots of diverse subjects/disciplines being taught and researched. The Arabs/Turks later invaded, looted and destroyed these amazing universities and their priceless treasure trove of books (the libraries were so huge that the arson fires burnt for months). The ruins of these ancient pioneering repositories of knowledge still stand as mute witnesses to their glorious knowledge-sharing past.
by vee-kay
12/27/2025 at 12:46:35 PM
The original comment was about one language that borrowed cipher from Arabic (i.e. English) where the word no longer means zero. So my comment was about a different language that also borrowed the word cipher (i.e. Tamil) where it still retains that meaning.by sundarurfriend
12/27/2025 at 5:20:20 AM
So is Gemini. but from it I gather there might be something interesting about a word that "loops back" (geographically) but evolutionarily speaking it was a reworking of _independent_ discoveries of "emptiness"Arabic -> Tamil <- Arabic - Sanskrit
by gsf_emergency_6
12/27/2025 at 4:44:41 AM
Buddy English has no "shared root" with Japanese but we still say sushi.What does it mean when someone creates a new account for posting contradictory comments?
by Razengan
12/27/2025 at 4:52:13 AM
English's superpower is readily absorbing new words from other languages.Sushi is now an English word. So is hummus, etc.
by stackghost
12/27/2025 at 4:01:27 PM
> Sushi is now an English word.Eyeballing the Wikipedia page, and out of the only scripts I could read, I counted 72 languages that used a direct transcription of "sushi". It isn’t as much a superpower as a thing languages do in general.
by kergonath
12/27/2025 at 11:11:50 AM
If that's a superpower, it's a staggeringly common superpower.by _0ffh
12/26/2025 at 9:01:01 PM
Dutch too: "Cijfer", German, "Ziffer", French: "Chifre", Spanish: "Cifra".by jacquesm
12/26/2025 at 10:16:55 PM
Swedish: "Siffra"by estomagordo
12/27/2025 at 5:23:16 PM
That explains Major Zero and his organisation Cipher in the metal gear seriesby blarg1