Zero Progress
From 427 until 1197 CE, Narlanda University in India was one of the world’s great centers of learning - and humankind’s first residential university. By the late 10th Century, it had over 9,000 manuscripts in its library. It predates Oxford by over 500 years and, like any good school, getting in was tough. Because of the enormous number of people in India, getting into university is still a giant hill to climb. Only the best and brightest are admitted. As the Assistant Indian Minister of Finance once told me in Delhi, “Yeah, everybody here has a doctorate, but nobody wants to work”. But Narlanda’s claim to fame isn’t just its antiquity and a vast library. It’s the concept of nothing. Read on.