The introduction of zero to Russia

[Steve Marder]

Dear SEELANGS readers,

In reference to a matter raised by Paul Richardson, I wrote to a former
teacher of mine, whose comments I am now forwarding:

"I seem to remember an article on this subject by Simonov, the leading
specialist on early Russian mathematical manuscripts, but I can't find it.
For some discussion of this see ch. 2 of A. P. Iushkevich, Istoriia
matematiki v Rossii, M. 1968. Also L.L. Kutina, Formirovanie iazyka russkoi
nauki, M.,1964, pp. 14-20.

There are several coins, manuscripts and printed books of Russian origin in
the seventeenth century which use or give lists of modern 'hindu-arabic'
numerals, and Russian traders and officials in the Posolskii prikaz must
certainly have been familiar with western numerals, so the concept must have
been known and understood, at least by some.

Russian alphabetical numerals did not in fact need a zero since every number
ending in zero in modern notation had a letter to designate it: e.g. k= 20.
These could be modified by a preceding or subscript oblique line with two
cross bars to produce thousands, and various kinds of circle round the
letter for larger multiples of 1000. Arithmetical calculation was perfectly
possible in this system as it had been for the Greeks from whom it was
taken.

The earliest words for zero are recorded from the end of the 17th century
and early eighteenth century -  on, onik (i.e. the name of the latter o) in
Peter I notebook (1688) and Kopievskii, later tsifra and nul'.

Emeritus Professor W. F. Ryan FBA, FSA
Warburg Institute
(School of Advanced Study, University of London)"

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