Zero Today

In the history of culture the discovery of zero will always stand out as one of the greatest single achievements of the human race.

-Tobias Danzig, Number:

The Language of Science

(Seife, pp.12)

 

                It is hard to imagine the world if "zero" had never existed. I'm not really sure if I can picture what it would be like without the "idea of zero," but it helps me to see how useful it is and how prevalent.  The symbol itself can be seen as a very powerful and encompassing symbol that has a lot of uses.  I can picture what life would be like without the "place holder zero." School is hard enough, I would hate to have to memorize endless amounts of symbols and then have to do calculations with them. It would be impossible. Especially thing how large of numbers we are dealing with today and how frequently, especially in with computers.  Large numbers were used before in Astronomy though and I have empathy for those who did their calculations without zero.  I mentioned computers, but what about the binary system they operate on. I'll have to admit that I don't know if they could operate on 1s and 2s instead, but  I would think that one of the numbers would still have to signify nothing(so it would really be zero.) Zero, also plays a huge role in statistics. I'm not sure if statistics would be possible without zero. That gets into zero as a number, which we have already explained how important it is in algebra and calculus, which have really led us into the modern world.  I'll sum it up with I'm sure is a small subset of examples of what zero has led to:

{Computers, internet, tv, "we have zero tolerance...," the number 1,0000,000,000,000,023, mathematical addition and subtraction such as   , "I am hungry," the distance of 10ft makes sense, rulers, architecture, planes, anything where area or volume has to be calculated under the curve, We can move, we can win a race, realistic art(perspective goes off to infinity)}.