Two small figures guard the table holding the Buddha’s relics. Are they spearmen, or robots?
British Museum
Stories passed down from the ancient world tell of self-powered machines able to move on their own – robots – playing key roles in historic moments.
Bakhshali manuscript.
Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
High school students can blame ancient India for quadratic equations and calculus.
Shutterstock
Turning zero from a punctuation mark into a number paved the way for everything from algebra to algorithms.