What is the main conflict in Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife?

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea was written by Charles Seife, an American journalist and journalism professor at NYU. Seife's biography, of course, is of a number and hence it is not a standard biographical work. Instead, the book tries to explain math and physics to the interested lay person. The use of zero is largely a plot device to organize the information Seife wants to communicate. Thus all the stories of mathematical and scientific advances are built around the relationship of the breakthrough to the number zero and its compliment, which is infinity.