History of binary code The ancient Hindu mathematician Pingala presented the first known description of a binary numbering system in the 3rd century BC, which coincided with his discovery of the concept of the number zero. The modern binary system was fully documented by Leibniz, in the XVII century, in his article "Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire". It mentions the binary symbols used by Chinese mathematicians. Leibniz used 0 and 1, just like the current binary numbering system.