The Origins of the Zero
Overview
The zero was invented three times in the history of the mathematics. The Babylonians, the Maya, and the Hindus all invented a symbol to represent nothing. However, only the Hindus came to understand the importance of what the zero represented. Today we use a descendant of the Hindu zero, which had a long journey and encountered much resistance until finally accepted in the West.
Background
Before any invention can be made and accepted in a society, there has to be a need. One of the reasons the zero was not developed along with other numbers is that many early number systems had no real need for a symbol to represent nothing. This may sound strange, but even today we rarely use the term zero in everyday speech. We say, "There are no apples," not "There are zero apples."
The Egyptian, Greek, and Roman number systems represented each number by a unique collection of symbols. For example, in the Roman system the number 23 is XXIII—two tens and three ones—while 203 is CCIII. There are two major faults with such a system. First, the number of symbols needed to represent some numbers can be very large.
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