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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mac Con Ulaidh who wrote (121698)	9/24/2012 1:06:35 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

The concept of zero as a number is attributed to India. Before that the Sumerians did some work on it in terms of a place holder. Yes, the Indians developed the actual number zero. However, the concept, using a place holder or a space instead of an actual number, was first proposed by the Babylonians who inherited the Sumarian's numerical system: The Babylonians, who were famous for their astronomical observations and calculations (aided by their invention of the abacus), used a sexagesimal (base-60) positional numeral system inherited from the Sumerian and also Akkadian civilizations. Neither of the predecessors was a positional system (having a convention for which ‘end’ of the numeral represented the units). en.wikipedia.org The place holder was the precursor to the actual number, zero.