Tech Story #9 · Golden Age G2: the digits on your screen — India → Baghdad → Europe

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// WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

0–9 and place value came from India (Brahmagupta's zero, 628), travelled west through al-Khwarizmi's arithmetic book and Fibonacci (1202) — the base of binary in every chip.

// LESSON NOTES

The digits on your screen — 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 — came from INDIA! 🇮🇳🔢

🏛️ Try adding Roman numerals: MMXXVI + CCCXLIV = ??? No zero, no place value — very hard!
💡 India's trick: the PLACE gives the value (2026 = 2×1000 + 0×100 + 2×10 + 6), and ZERO fills the empty spot.
📜 628: the mathematician Brahmagupta wrote rules for zero: a + 0 = a, a − 0 = a, a × 0 = 0.
📖 About 825, al-Khwarizmi's book on Indian numbers carried them to Baghdad and the Arab world…
🇮🇹 …and in 1202 Fibonacci's book Liber Abaci spread them across Europe.
💻 Today every chip counts the same way — place value in binary: 1011 = 8 + 2 + 1 = 11.
That's why they're called Hindu–Arabic numerals.

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