Zero and its use was first defined by Brahmagupta, the ancient Indian mathematician (not Aryabhatta) in 628 CE. And now, here's a stinging fact capable of deflating human pride as the most intelligent species. While it took human beings centuries to come up with the concept, bees knew all along about the number zero. A study published this week in the journal Science led by researchers from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia proved that bees can understand what zero is.

The number zero has an integral role in mathematics and many algebraic structures. But as important as it is, it is a concept that is difficult to grasp. The study says that although children grasp the symbolic number zero around the age of four, to think that a "nothing" can be a numerical quality is not a knowledge that comes naturally. The popular belief was that concept so difficult for "superior" human minds to grasp may be even tougher for animal brains. But studies on cognitively advanced vertebrates such as monkeys and birds showed that they can distinguish numerical quantities and also recognise the smallest number on the mental number line. But the new study showed that even the honey bee can comprehend zero as a number.

To put their hypothesis to test, they trained two groups of 10 bees to first understand the twin concepts of "less than" and "greater than" by rewarding each correct answer with sugar. The bees were then tested on a couple of different numerical concepts, eventually leading to the number zero. Once they were sufficiently trained, the bees were tested whether they could apply the concepts they had been trained on.

Around 75 percent of the bees who were trained to understand "greater than" could correctly identify a card that had five shapes as greater than a card with two or three shapes. The group of 10 bees belonging to the "less than " group were 68 percent accurate in guessing. The researchers then showed them zero by introducing a card with no shapes. Something amazing happened; the bees in the "less than" group were able to identify that as a lesser number.

Although the number zero may seem like a simple concept, it's an abstract idea which we don't expect animals with their simplistic minds to understand. Bear in mind that humans are acquainted with the idea of number zero since we are introduced to it through academics. But the experiment, however, flies in the face of human hubris and prove that animals may be blessed with an inherent understanding of things. As far as the experiment is concerned, scientists are yet to ascertain as to how the bees grasped the concept of "nothing."

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 09, 2018 11:59 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).