If someone calls you a zero, you know it’s a diss without even having to think about it. You know right away that it means they think you’re nothing, smaller than any number. But humans aren’t the ...

About 2,500 years ago, Babylonian traders in Mesopotamia impressed two slanted wedges into clay tablets. The shapes represented a placeholder digit, squeezed between others, to distinguish numbers ...

Honeybees are able to understand the mathematical concept of zero, according to a new study published in the journal Science. This places them in an elite group of animals that are known to be able to ...

Despite its importance for mathematics, the neuronal basis of the number zero in the human brain was previously unknown. Researchers from the University Hospital Bonn (UKB), the University of Bonn and ...

Researchers at the University of Tübingen in Germany have new evidence suggesting crows can contemplate the number zero. This ability means the birds join an “elite” group of creatures that can ...

The concept of zero may seem easy to you, but many human societies struggled with the idea. However, some of the world's smartest animals understand zero, and now that group includes the honey bee.

One of the biggest mathematical achievements in human history has to do with the origin of nothing—or zero, to be more specific. Researchers at the University of Oxford's Bodleian Library recently ...

As a mathematics education researcher, I study how math instruction impacts students' learning, from following standard math procedures to understanding mathematical concepts. Focusing on the latter, ...