Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea

by Charles Seife

In the Babylonian system—with zero in it—it’s easy to write fractions. Just as we can write 0.5 for 1/2 and 0.75 for 3/4, the Babylonians used the numbers 0;30 for 1/2 and 0;45 for 3/4. (In fact, the Babylonian base-60 system is even better suited to writing down fractions than our modern-day base-10 system.) Unfortunately the Greeks and Romans hated zero so much that they clung to their own Egyptian-like notation rather than convert to the Babylonian system, even though the Babylonian system was easier to use. For intricate calculations, like those needed to create astronomical tables, the Greek system was so cumbersome that the mathematicians converted the unit fractions to the Babylonian sexagesimal system, did the calculations, and then translated the answers back into the Greek style. They could have saved many time-consuming steps. (We all know how fun it is to convert fractions back and forth!) However, the Greeks so despised zero that they refused to admit it into their writings, even though they saw how useful it was.