Was watching Engineering an Empire on the history channel and the episode was covering the Mayan empire.
They were talking about how the Mayan empire “created” (don’t remember the exact wording used) the concept of zero. Which aided them in the designing and building of their structures and temples. And due to them knowing the concept of zero they were much more advanced than European empires/civilizations. If that’s true then how were much older civilizations able to build the structures they did without the concept of zero?
In: 395
There’s a good book, Zero, the Biography of a dangerous Idea. If you get a chance, give it a read.
Bit as has been pointed out, zero as a “number” really didn’t need to be applied until complex math happened. Back in the before times it wasn’t recorded that you had zero goats or that your neighbor owed you zero bushels of wheat. You just didn’t have any goats and your neighbor didn’t owe you any more goods.
But as society evolved manipulation of this data it became difficult to reconcile “nothing” quantities. Some characters should be used like any other number to hold a place for nothing. It makes that complex math juat that much easier
So yeah. And gonrwad that book.
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