Why is array indexing in Java start with 0?

Question

Why is array indexing done with 0 and not with 1 in programming languages like Java ? I am totally new to java any explanation is welcomed.

Answer 1

A quote by Dijkstra, from Why numbering should start at zero (1982):

When dealing with a sequence of length N, the elements of which we wish to distinguish by subscript, the next vexing question is what subscript value to assign to its starting element. Adhering to convention a) yields, when starting with subscript 1, the subscript range 1 ≤ i < N+1; starting with 0, however, gives the nicer range 0 ≤ i < N. So let us let our ordinals start at zero: an element's ordinal (subscript) equals the number of elements preceding it in the sequence. And the moral of the story is that we had better regard —after all those centuries!— zero as a most natural number.

A discussion about this article can be found in Lambda the Ultimate - Why numbering should start at 0.