The Babylonians, like us, used positions (like our base 10 ones, tens, hundreds, thousands) to represent numbers. For example, think of how we keep time: 60 s in a minute, 60 min in an hour. In modern mathematics, we still use base 60 for certain functions. The Babylonians were good mathematicians and astronomers who used a complicated base 60 system, rather than our base 10 system 2. This system was developed and refined from even older systems of writing numbers and making calculations! We know a lot about the Babylonian system, because they wrote on clay tablets that have survived. Let us look at numerals used in ancient Babylon, where there was a sophisticated mathematical system over 5,000 years ago. To find the source of zero, we must look elsewhere. The Mayans living in Central America used the idea of zero 1 in their calendar system, but because they were isolated from other people, their zero did not travel beyond their own civilization. The Babylonians and Romans did not have a way to represent zero with a distinct symbol nor did the Greeks, who did not think “nothing” was a number. While we take zero for granted, it is a relatively recent invention. Imagine for a minute what your life would be like without that little circle we use to represent zero! Mathematics is a wonderful mystery-many questions remain about how and why zero developed in the East and how it likely traveled to Europe. This would mean that zero is not a Greek or Western invention, as scholars had long thought. We try to answer the question: where did zero come from and how old is the concept of zero? There is strong evidence that zero is an Eastern development that came to the West from India or a civilization with roots in India, such as Cambodia. In this article, we will explain why zero was such an important development. While the Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans were able to do remarkably sophisticated calculations, mathematical development was limited until introduction of a true zero.
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