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
The concept of zero as a technology is useful in that it allows us to make math a lot easier.
Zero is necessary to create a space between positive and negative numbers.
Zero is also necessary to create a numbers system that relies on a base that starts over at some point and uses zero as a place holder (like, imagine how much more difficult shit would be if every number after nine was a new number in the same way that 1-9 were).
Zero is such an important idea that multiple empires have invented it independently. The Mayans weren’t the only empire to have made use of zero as a mathematical construct. It was also independently invented in Mesopotamia and India, and probably maybe other places.
Edit: if it helps, look at Roman numerals, which do not have a zero. Try to multiply CCXXXVI by XV in your head without converting them to a base 10 system with a 0 and see how fast you give up.
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