Zero, a number that indicates an absence of units.

Zero（零）是個用來指「不存在」的數字。

In order to understand the genesis of the word "zero", we must begin with the very origins of counting.

想理解 zero 的起源，得從計數源頭探討起 。

The earliest known archaeological evidence of counting dates back approximately 37,000 years and is merely a series of notches in bone.

有關計數最早的考古證據約可追溯至三萬七千年前，而那些證據不過是骨頭上一系列的凹槽。

It wasn't until around 2500 B.C. that the first written number system began to take form in Mesopotamia, using the units one, ten, and sixty.

直到西元前 2500 年左右，最初的數字書寫系統才在美索不達米亞開始形成，當時的人用 1、10 和 60 為單位計數。

Fast forward another three millennia to 7th-century India, where mathematicians used a single dot to distinguish between numbers like 25, 205, and 250.

快轉至 3 千年後 7 世紀的印度，數學家們用點來區分像是 25、205 和 250 等數字。

Employed as both a placeholder and a number, this all-powerful dot eventually morphed into the symbol we know today.

作為預留位置和位數這威力無窮的點，最終被擬仿為我們今日熟悉的符號。

The word "zero" comes from the Arabic "ṣifr", whose literal translation is "empty".

Zero 這個字來自阿拉伯文 ṣifr，字面意思為「空」。

Passing through Italian as "zefiro", zero came into English in the 17th century.

傳到義大利，這個字變成了 zefiro，又在 17 世紀以 zero 的型態進入英語。

A second descendant of the Arabic root was adopted into English through old French as the word "cipher".

Cipher 是另一個被引用進古法語後，又傳入英語的阿拉伯文字根。

Originally sharing the meaning "empty" with zero, cipher later came to describe a code,

起初，cipher 與 zero 都是「空」的意思，但 cipher 後來逐漸被用來指「代碼」，

as early codes often used complicated substitutions between letters and numbers.

因為早期的代碼經常使用字母和數字之間的複雜替換。

From this shared "empty" origin, zero continues to represent the number that represents nothing.

從「空」這個共同的起源開始，0 一直是代表著「無」的數字。