Carbon dating of an ancient Indian document, the Bakhshali manuscript, has recently placed the first written occurrence of the number zero in the third or fourth century A.D., about 500 years earlier than previously believed. While the news has no practical bearing on the infrastructure of zeros (and ones) underlying our high-tech civilization, it does remind us how indebted we are for this invention. But to whom is this debt owed? And how should it be repaid?

Chauvinistic politicians might loudly trumpet India’s role (as they have, more controversially, in the case of the Pythagorean theorem), but the history of zero remains unsettled enough to still be the subject of continuing quests. The Babylonians used it as a placeholder, an idea later developed independently by the Mayans. The Chinese, at some point in time, indicated it by an empty space in their counting-rod system. Some claim the Greeks flirted with the idea but, finding the concept of the void too frightening in their Aristotelian framework, passed it on to the Indians. The Hindus are generally acknowledged as being the first to formulate it as an independent number — the key to using it in mathematical calculations or binary code. What’s clear is that this history is dominated by non-European civilizations. Truly an alt-right nightmare.

Obviously, there were no intellectual property rights in force back then. Had there been a patent office, it might have ruled, as courts do now, that mathematical advances uncover pre-existing knowledge rather than create anything new — and are hence unpatentable. The conundrum of whether mathematics is discovered or invented is as old as Plato. Certainly, zero displays this duality: The void is as old as time, but it was a human innovation to harness it with a symbol.

In recognition of this innovation, and ignoring all practicalities, suppose someone, somehow, had figured out how to put a price tag on zero. The royalties generated would be staggering — imagine the tab for just your personal use alone! This might lead to a significant redistribution of wealth, most of it going to the developing world.